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Comparison of the responses to light and to GABA of cells postsynaptic to barnacle photoreceptors (I-cells)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Joseph C. Callaway  and
Ann E. Stuart
Joseph C. Callaway
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle
Ann E. Stuart
Affiliation:
Departments of Physiology and Ophthalmology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill
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Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the transmitter released by barnacle photoreceptors onto postsynaptic cells (I-cells). GABA was applied to I-cells either by superfusion or by ejecting it with pressure from a pipette positioned close to the I-cell's soma. The I-cell's response to GABA was compared with its response to light (i.e. to the photoreceptors' transmitter) by recording intracellularly from its soma. Bath-applied (100 µm to 10 mM) and pressure-applied GABA (10 mM in pipette) hyperpolarizes I-cells by increasing their conductance, as does the photoreceptors' transmitter. The response to pressure-applied GABA consists of two components; both persist when Co2+ or Cd2+ are added to the saline to block synaptic transmission in the preparation, indicating that GABA affects the I-cell directly rather than affecting a presynaptic cell. GABA hyperpolarizes the I-cell when applied to the cell over the soma and ipsilateral arbor or over the contralateral arbor. The I-cells' responses to GABA and to light both depend on extracellular K+ and are affected by changes in intracellular and extracellular Cl−. However, picrotoxin and β-guanidinopropionic acid block the response to pressure-applied GABA but do not block the response to light even at an order of magnitude higher concentration. Thus, GABA is not likely to be the transmitter that causes the hyperpolarizing response of the I-cell. It may be a neuromodulator or the transmitter of an unknown input to the I-cell.

Keywords

GABAPhotoreceptorSynapsePicrotoxinBarnacle
Type
Research Articles
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 301 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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