Assortment of GABAergic Plasticity in the Cortical Interneuron Melting Pot

Figure 1

Oversimplified scheme of the inhibitory control of cortical pyramidal neurons by several general classes of GABAergic interneurons. Information (pink wide arrow) is transferred from excitatory glutamatergic synapses (red axon terminals) to the pyramidal neuron (red cell) dendrite. Excitation (information) travels along the dendritic tree to the soma and axon initial segment, where it could generate an action potential. Along this dendro-somatic-axonal axis, information can be differently filtered by GABAergic synapses possessing specific basic and plasticity properties. On the left-hand side, interneurons controlling the output are illustrated as different classes of basket and axo-axonic cells. Different GABAergic interneurons controlling the input into pyramidal neurons are shown on the right, as impinging the dendrite(s) at different distances from the soma. Details in the text.