Depressed responses of facilitatory synapses

We show that when temporal summation takes place, depression of postsynaptic responses may ensue when the underlying synaptic conductance change is constant or even facilitatory. We term this phenomenon "apparent depression." Such apparent depression is most notable for slow synaptic conductance changes, for high frequency, and when the synapse is located at distal dendritic sites. We show that, when temporal summation ensues, the erroneous estimation of short-term synaptic plasticity arises partially from the conventional measurement of synaptic dynamics at postsynaptic potential peak time. This can be corrected when measuring overlapping synaptic responses at fixed intervals after stimulus time. Somatic voltage clamp also helps to partially correct for the apparent depression, but a good model of the neuron can do even better in providing a more accurate view of the underlying synaptic conductances.