Fig. 4.

The activation of nucleus ambiguus cardiac vagal neurons is reduced in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-deficient mice. Spontaneous inhibitory GABAergic (a) and excitatory glutamatergic excitatory post-synaptic currents (EPSCs) (b) were isolated and recorded from labeled cardioinhibitory vagal neurons (CVNs) in the nucleus ambiguus (NA) using the whole-cell patch-clamp configuration. Representative traces from both wild-type (WT) and BDNF+/− mice are shown on the left, whereas average data are illustrated on the right (*p < 0.05). BDNF+/− mice possessed significantly lower frequencies of excitatory glutamate EPSCs than in WT mice, 1.9 ± 0.5 Hz (BDNF+/−) versus 4.6 ± 1 Hz (WT) (*p < 0.04). In contrast, BDNF+/− mice had significantly higher levels of inhibitory GABA inhibitory post-synaptic currents (IPSCs) events, 3.1 ± 0.7 Hz (BDNF+/−) versus 1.0 ± 0.3 Hz (WT) (*p < 0.03). Values are the mean and SEM. Inhibitory GABAergic events were recorded from nine neurons from nine WT mice (one neuron per mouse) and from 10 neurons from 10 BDNF+/− mice (one neuron per mouse). Glutamatergic EPSCs were recorded from eight neurons from WT mice, and eight neurons from BDNF+/− mice, in slices from seven WT and seven BDNF+/− mice.