Hatton G I, Yang Q Z
Department of Neuroscience, University of California, Riverside 92521-0146.
Brain Res. 1994 Jul 4;650(1):63-9. doi: 10.1016/0006-8993(94)90207-0.
Dye coupling among neurons has been shown to reflect electrotonic coupling. Recent work in retina has revealed that the incidence of coupling is greater when estimated by neurobiotin (NB) transfer than by Lucifer yellow (LY). Several previous studies have shown that the incidence of LY coupling among supraoptic nucleus (SON) neurons of lactating rats is 2- to 4-fold higher than is observed in virgin females. We compared the incidence of coupling among SON neurons following simultaneous injections of LY and NB into the same cells in slices from virgin or lactating rats. As seen in previous studies, there were 4-fold more LY-coupled neurons per injection in lactating as compared to virgin rats. Under both conditions, the numbers of NB-coupled neurons per injection were 4-fold greater than was observed for LY; possible mechanisms are discussed. Individual NB-filled neurons were coupled to as many as 10 other cells distributed over a large area of the SON. These results confirm previous findings of more coupling in lactating than virgin SONs, and suggest that both the incidence and spatial extent of interneuronal coupling are greater and thus probably more important functionally than has been heretofore appreciated.
神经元之间的染料偶联已被证明可反映电紧张偶联。视网膜的最新研究表明，通过神经生物素（NB）转移估计的偶联发生率比通过荧光黄（LY）估计的更高。先前的几项研究表明，哺乳期大鼠视上核（SON）神经元中LY偶联的发生率比未生育雌性大鼠高2至4倍。我们比较了在未生育或哺乳期大鼠脑片中，将LY和NB同时注射到同一细胞后SON神经元之间的偶联发生率。如先前研究所示，与未生育大鼠相比，哺乳期大鼠每次注射中LY偶联的神经元数量多4倍。在两种情况下，每次注射中NB偶联的神经元数量比LY观察到的多4倍；并讨论了可能的机制。单个充满NB的神经元与分布在SON大面积区域的多达10个其他细胞偶联。这些结果证实了先前关于哺乳期SON比未生育SON偶联更多的发现，并表明神经元间偶联的发生率和空间范围都更大，因此在功能上可能比迄今所认识到的更重要。
