美国哈佛医学院Wade G. Regehr团队发现，攀爬纤维突触通过突触耦合快速且短暂地抑制邻近的浦肯野细胞。相关论文于2020年9月7如在线发表在《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

Title: Climbing fiber synapses rapidly and transiently inhibit neighboring Purkinje cells via ephaptic coupling

Author: Kyung-Seok Han, Christopher H. Chen, Mehak M. Khan, Chong Guo, Wade G. Regehr

Issue&Volume: 2020-09-07

Abstract: Climbing fibers from the inferior olive make strong excitatory synapses onto cerebellar Purkinje cell (PC) dendrites and trigger distinctive responses known as complex spikes. We found that, in awake mice, a complex spike in one PC suppressed conventional simple spikes in neighboring PCs for several milliseconds. This involved a new ephaptic coupling, in which an excitatory synapse generated large negative extracellular signals that nonsynaptically inhibited neighboring PCs. The distance dependence of complex spike–simple spike ephaptic signaling, combined with the known CF divergence, allowed a single inferior olive neuron to influence the output of the cerebellum by synchronously suppressing the firing of potentially over 100 PCs. Optogenetic studies in vivo and dynamic clamp studies in slice indicated that such brief PC suppression, as a result of either ephaptic signaling or other mechanisms, could effectively promote firing in neurons in the deep cerebellar nuclei with remarkable speed and precision.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-020-0701-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-020-0701-z