Cholinergic modulation of inhibitory synaptic transmission in the piriform cortex

The modulatory effects of acetylcholine in cortical structures have been previously studied in this laboratory and by others, using both experimental and computational tools (Hasselmo and Bower, 1992; Pitler and Alger, 1992). Cholinergic modulation in the piriform cortex shows laminar selectivity in suppression of excitatory synaptic transmission at the intrinsic (in layer lb) but not afferent (in layer Ib) fiber synapses, and may set the dynamics for recall and storage of information (Hasselmo and Bower, 1992). Cholinergic modulation has also been shown to enhance long term potentiation of synaptic potentials (Hasselmo and Barkai, 1995). The present work addresses the effect of cholinergic modulation on primarily inhibitory, and also excitatory components of synaptic transmission using intracellular recording techniques in a brain slice preparation.