Physiology and Plasticity of Morphologically Identified Cells in the Mormyrid Electrosensory Lobe

Abstract

The electrosensory lobe (ELL) of mormyrid electric fish is the first stage in the central processing of sensory input from electroreceptors. The responses of cells in ELL to electrosensory input are strongly affected by corollary discharge signals associated with the motor command that drives the electric organ discharge (EOD). This study used intracellular recording and staining to describe the physiology of three major cell types in the mormyrid ELL: the medium ganglion cell, the large ganglion cell, and the large fusiform cell. The medium ganglion cell is a Purkinje-like interneuron, whereas the large ganglion and large fusiform cells are efferent neurons that convey electrosensory information to higher stages of the system. Clear differences were observed among the three cell types. Medium ganglion cells showed two types of spikes, a small narrow spike and a large broad spike that were probably of axonal and dendro-somatic origin, respectively, whereas the large ganglion and large fusiform cells showed only large narrow spikes. Most of the medium ganglion cells and all of the large ganglion cells were inhibited by electrosensory stimuli in the center of their receptive fields, whereas the large fusiform cells were excited by such stimuli. Responses to the EOD corollary discharge were different in the three cell types, and these responses underwent plastic changes after a few minutes of pairing with an electrosensory stimulus. Plastic changes were also observed in medium and large ganglion cells after the corollary discharge was paired with depolarizing, intracellular current pulses.