Long-term potentiation is differentially expressed in rostral and caudal neurons in the superior cervical ganglion of normal and hypertensive rats.

Neurons in the superior cervical ganglia (SCG) are classified as rostral and caudal according to their regional locations. Although diverse phenotypes have been reported for these two subpopulations, differences in neuroplasticity, like long-term potentiation (LTP), have not been characterized. Here, we explored possible regional differences of LTP expression in rostral and caudal neurons of the SCG in control rats, Wistar and Wistar Kyoto (WKy), and in the spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) as a model of hypertension. We characterized the expression of gLTP evoked by a tetanic train (40 Hz, 3 s) in an in vitro SCG preparation. gLTP was recorded in rostral and caudal neurons at 8-weeks-old (wo) in Wistar rats, 6-wo and 12-wo in SHR and WKy rats. We found that gLTP was differentially expressed; gLTP was larger in caudal neurons in Wistar and adult WKy rats. In adult 12-wo hypertensive SHR, gLTP was expressed in caudal but not in rostral neurons. In contrast, in 6-wo pre-hypertensive SHR, gLTP was expressed in rostral but not in caudal neurons; while in 6-wo WKy, gLTP was expressed in caudal but not in rostral neurons. The lack of gLTP expression in caudal neurons of 6-wo SHR was not due to a GABAergic modulation because several GABA-A receptor antagonists failed to unmask gLTP. Data show that neuroplasticity, particularly gLTP expression, varied according to the ganglionic region. We propose that differential regional expression of gLTP may be correlated with selective innervation on different target organs.