eLife (Jun 2024)

GABAergic synaptic scaling is triggered by changes in spiking activity rather than AMPA receptor activation

  • Carlos Gonzalez-Islas,
  • Zahraa Sabra,
  • Ming-fai Fong,
  • Pernille Yilmam,
  • Nicholas Au Yong,
  • Kathrin Engisch,
  • Peter Wenner

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.87753
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12

Abstract

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Homeostatic plasticity represents a set of mechanisms that are thought to recover some aspect of neural function. One such mechanism called AMPAergic scaling was thought to be a likely candidate to homeostatically control spiking activity. However, recent findings have forced us to reconsider this idea as several studies suggest AMPAergic scaling is not directly triggered by changes in spiking. Moreover, studies examining homeostatic perturbations in vivo have suggested that GABAergic synapses may be more critical in terms of spiking homeostasis. Here, we show results that GABAergic scaling can act to homeostatically control spiking levels. We found that perturbations which increased or decreased spiking in cortical cultures triggered multiplicative GABAergic upscaling and downscaling, respectively. In contrast, we found that changes in AMPA receptor (AMPAR) or GABAR transmission only influence GABAergic scaling through their indirect effect on spiking. We propose that GABAergic scaling represents a stronger candidate for spike rate homeostat than AMPAergic scaling.

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