Summary
Different synaptic terminals of the single excitor axon to the opener muscle of crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) often release transmitter in a very different manner when stimulated with the same equal-interval, doublet, or triplet patterns. Compared to synapses that show little facilitation (low Fe synapses), highly facilitating (high Fe) synapses show greater percentage increases in several measures of synaptic efficacy when stimulated with any of these patterns. Low Fe synapses usually show the greater absolute changes in these measures of synaptic efficacy. Changes in the span and pattern of doublets and triplets can independently affect both pre- and postsynaptic measures of synaptic efficacy at either low Fe or high Fe synapses.
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Abbreviations
- EJP :
-
excitatory junctional potential
- MJP :
-
spontaneous miniature EJP
- F e :
-
ratio of EJP at 1 Hz to EJP amplitude at 10 Hz
- F 1 :
-
zero-time facilitation
- A 2,B 2,C 2 :
-
doubly corrected EJP amplitude of a particular pulse
- \(\overline {A_2 } ,\overline {A_2 + B_2 } ,\overline {A_2 + B_2 + C_2 } \) :
-
average amplitude of doubly corrected EJPs in a train of equal-interval, doublets, and triplets, respectively
- Am, Bm, Cm :
-
maximum depolarization reached by a particular EJP
- τ :
-
time constant of decay
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Bittner, G.D., Segundo, J.P. Effects of stimulus timing on transmitter release and postsynaptic membrane potential at crayfish neuromuscular junctions. J. Comp. Physiol. 165, 371–382 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00619356
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00619356