Figure 5.

Learning-induced enhancement of spontaneous inhibitory events is abolished in the presence of the peptide inhibitor tatCN21. A, Spontaneous inhibitory events recorded from a pseudo-trained (left) and a trained (right) neuron, before (top traces) and after (bottom traces) application of the peptide inhibitor tatCN21. While tatCN21 has no apparent effect on the event amplitudes in the pseudo-trained rat neurons, high-amplitude events in the trained rat neurons were abolished. B, Amplitude histograms of the two neurons recorded in A. Note the large number of high-amplitude events in the trained rat neuron (top histogram, right) compared with the pseudo-trained rat neuron (top histogram, left). tatCN21 has little effect on the amplitude distribution in the pseudo-trained neuron (bottom histogram, left), while strongly affecting the trained neuron (bottom histogram, right). C, The average amplitude of the inhibitory synaptic events is significantly reduced in neurons from trained rats only after tatCN21 application (*p < 0.05), as result of which the difference in the average amplitude between the groups disappears. Data taken from five naive, eight trained, and four pseudo-trained rats. D, tatCN21 affected particularly neurons from trained rats.