Increasing Ca²⁺ transients by broadening postsynaptic action potentials enhances timing-dependent synaptic depression

Repeated induction of pre- and postsynaptic action potentials (APs) at a fixed time difference leads to long-term potentiation (LTP) or long-term depression (LTD) of the synapse, depending on the temporal order of pre- and postsynaptic activity. This phenomenon of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) is believed to arise by nonlinear processes that lead to larger calcium transients (and thus LTP) when presynaptic APs precede postsynaptic APs and smaller calcium transients (and thus LTD) when postsynaptic APs precede presynaptic APs. In contrast to predictions from such calcium-peak-detector models, we show that constitutively or artificially broadened APs in layer II/III pyramidal cells of entorhinal cortex (EC) lead to an increase in the dendritic calcium transient and shift the balance of STDP toward LTD. STDP in entorhinal pyramidal cells is NMDA-receptor-dependent and modulated by the Ca_v 1 Ca²⁺ channel-blocker nifedipine. Results are consistent with an elaboration of the calcium-peak-detector model in which downstream signals from voltage-dependent Ca²⁺ channels suppress LTP relative to LTD. Our results suggest that modulation of AP width is a potent way to adjust the rules of synaptic plasticity in the EC.