Figure 3.

SD alters baseline electrophysiological properties and LTP maintenance in the CA1 region of wild-type mice but not in dnSNARE mice. Both dnSNARE and wild-type mice were deprived of sleep for 6 h by gentle handling or were left undisturbed in their home cages. A, The strength of the synaptic input, as measured by the presynaptic fiber volley amplitude, was gradually increased, and the resulting postsynaptic output was plotted. The resulting input/output curves showed no difference in basal excitability between groups. B, Pairs of stimuli were delivered with interstimulus intervals of 25, 50, 100, 200, or 300 ms. Plotted is the ratio of the slopes of the resulting fEPSPs. PPF was similar across groups at each interval tested. C, Following 6 h of SD by gentle handling, LTP was induced in hippocampal slices by application of four 100 Hz, 1 s duration trains of stimuli to the Schaffer collateral pathway, with a 5 min interstimulus interval (indicated by arrows). Wild-type SD mice showed an impaired L-LTP compared with NSD littermates. D, In hippocampal slices from dnSNARE mice, L-LTP is maintained after SD at the same level as in NSD mice. Insets show representative recordings from an animal from each group taken during the first and last 5 min of the recording. Values are means ± SEM and n represents the number of animals.