Figure 1.
Activity-dependent gating of lateral inhibition. (a) Schematic of experimental configuration. Whole-cell recording of a single mitral cell (blue cell, postsynaptic cell) during application of extracellular stimulation (ECS) in the glomerular layer, activating a population of presynaptic mitral cells (orange cells). Mitral cells were disynaptically connected via the shared population of granule cells (green cells). (b) ECS evoked IPSPs in the recorded mitral cell and resulted in inhibition of firing rate for a given current step. The control firing rate (58 Hz) was reduced (to 38 Hz) by ECS. (c,d) Effectiveness of ECS in reducing mitral cell firing rate is shown by plotting F-I curves (red line with ECS and black line without ECS, c) and by plotting frequency with and without ECS for the same current steps (d). (e) Percentage change (blue line), as well as absolute change, in activity (red line) as a function of firing rate averaged across recordings. Shaded areas for this and subsequent figures indicate s.e.m.