Analysis of the GABAergic synaptic Inputs into mice Lateral Habenula

MOSQUEIRA A.; UCHITEL OD.; PIRIZ J.

Huerta Grande. Cordoba

Congreso; XXVIII CONGRESO ANUAL DE LA SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE INVESTIGACION EN NEUROCIENCIAS; 2013

SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE INVESTIGACION EN NEUROCIENCIAS

Analysis of the GABAergic synaptic Inputs into mice Lateral Habenula Alejo Mosqueira1°, Osvaldo Uchitel2°, Joaquin Piriz1° 1º Grupo de Neurociencia de Sistemas, Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires 2º IFIBYNE, CONICET UBA pirizjoaquin@gmail.com ________________________________________________________ Lateral Habenula (LHb) is a small epithalamic structure that exerts a powerful control over dopaminergic brain stem centers and conveys negative motivational signals. Physiological information about synaptic transmission in the LHb is scarce; particularly there is no information about physiology of inhibitory afferences over LHb. In this work we have begun to characterize them. We found inhibitory synapses over LHb to be clustered in two subpopulations one of big quantal size and another one of lower quantal size. High quantal size inhibitory synapses were present in half of the LHb recorded neurons, these neurons were also characterized by a higher frequency of spontaneous inhibitory synaptic currents. Functional consequences of activation of this high quantal inhibitory input are discussed.