Long-term potentiation in Schaffer collateral and commissural systems of the hippocampus: in vitro study in rats pretreated with kainic acid.

Experiments were carried out on hippocampal slices from rats pretreated with a unilateral intraventricular injection of kainic acid. The kainic acid produced a lesion of the CA3 area in the hippocampus ipsilateral to the site of injection. The resulting neuroanatomically modified hippocampal slices allowed the independent study of the Schaffer collateral and commissural afferents that synapse onto CA1 pyramidal cells. The Schaffer collateral and commissural afferents were both found to independently support long-term potentiation (LTP), and the properties of the LTP were similar to those observed in slices cut from unlesioned hippocampi.