Readily releasable pool size changes associated with long term depression

We have estimated, for hippocampal neurons in culture, the size of the autaptic readily releasable pool before and after stimulation of the sort that produces culture long term depression (LTD). This stimulation protocol causes a decrease in the pool size that is proportional to the depression of synaptic currents. To determine if depression in this system is synapse specific rather than general, we have also monitored synaptic transmission between pairs of cultured hippocampal neurons that are autaptically and reciprocally interconnected. We find that the change in synaptic strength is restricted to the synapses on the target neuron that were active during LTD induction. When viewed from the perspective of the presynaptic neuron, however, synapse specificity is partial rather than complete: synapses active during induction that were not on the target neuron were partially depressed.