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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 559/2/497    most recent jphysiol.2004.068049v2 jphysiol.2004.068049v1 Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Brancucci, A. Articles by Domenici, L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Brancucci, A. Articles by Domenici, L.

¹ International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS), Neuroscience Program, Trieste, Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisiologia Umana e Farmacologia, Università ‘La Sapienza’, Rome, Italy
³ Istituto di Neuroscienze, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pisa, Italy
⁴ Lay Line Genomics (LLG), Roma, Italy

Nerve growth factor (NGF) has been shown to regulate plasticity in the visual cortex of monocularly deprived animals. However, to date, few attempts have been made to investigate the role of NGF in synaptic plasticity at the cellular level. In the study reported here we looked at the effects of exogenously applied NGF on synaptic plasticity of layer II–III regular spiking (RS) neurones in visual cortex of 16- to 18-day-old rats. We found that local application of NGF converted high frequency stimulation (HFS)-induced long-term potentiation (LTP) into long-term depression (LTD). We showed that this shift of synaptic plasticity was also obtained with bath application of NGF during HFS. Application of NGF subsequent to HFS left LTP unaffected, conferring temporal constraints on NGF efficacy. NGF effects on LTP were mediated by TrkA receptors. Indeed, blockade of TrkA by monoclonal antibody prevented NGF from inducing LTD following HFS. Low frequency stimulation (LFS) elicited LTD in RS cells. We found that NGF or blockade of NGF signalling by anti-TrkA antibody did not change the amplitude of the LTD induced by LFS. Thus, the NGF effect is selective for synaptic modifications induced by HFS in RS cells. The present results indicate that NGF may modulate the sign of long-term changes of synaptic efficacy in response to high frequency inputs.

(Received 12 May 2004; accepted after revision 5 July 2004; first published online 14 July 2004)
Corresponding author L. Domenici: Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS), Neuroscience Program, Trieste, Italy. Email: domenici{at}sissa.it

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