Distribution of electrotonic synapses on identified lamprey neurons: a comparison of a model prediction with an electron microscopic analysis.

1. Intracellular recordings of the monosynaptic excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) were made from an identified giant interneuron in the lamprey spinal cord following stimulation of a single identified presynaptic giant axon. The EPSP had both electrotonic and chemical components. 2. The giant interneuron and sometimes the giant axon were labeled with horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Using combined light and electron microscopy (EM), gap junctions formed by the axon on the HRP-labeled dendritic trees of seven interneurons were identified and their position marked on dendritic diagrams made from tracings of the cells. 3. The total number of gap junctions on a giant interneuron varied from a minimum of 9 to a maximum of 23. The number of gap junctions on a branch of a dendritic tree varied from 1 to 9. For all seven neurons the closest gap junction was located approximately 65 microns from the soma and the furthest 280 microns from the soma. 4. When gap junction position was plotted as a function of electrotonic distance from the soma, the variability in their distribution decreased significantly. Synaptic location was found to be on the average about 0.5 space constants from the soma, and this value compared favorably with that determined from an analysis of half-width and rise time of the electrotonic synaptic potential for these neurons. 5. These results suggest that the presynaptic axon tends to make, on the average, synaptic contact at the same electrical distance from the soma.