Characterization of Neuronal Migration Disorders in Neocortical Structures. II. Intracellular In Vitro Recordings

Abstract

Luhmann, Heiko J., Nikolai Karpuk, Meishu Qü, and Karl Zilles. Characterization of neuronal migration disorders in neocortical structures. II. Intracellular in vitro recordings. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 92–102, 1998. Neuronal migration disorders (NMD) are involved in a variety of different developmental disturbances and in therapy-resistant epilepsy. The cellular mechanisms underlying the pronounced hyperexcitability in dysplastic cortex are not well understood and demand further clinical and experimental analyses. We used a focal freeze-lesion model in cerebral cortex of newborn rats to study the functional consequences of NMD. Intracellular recordings from supragranular regular spiking cells in cortical slices from adult sham-operated rats revealed normal passive and active intrinsic membrane properties and normal stimulus-evoked excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs and IPSPs, respectively). Regular spiking neurons recorded in rat dysplastic cortex showed on average a significantly smaller action potential amplitude, a slower spike rise, and a less steep primary frequency-current relationship. Stimulus-elicited EPSPs in NMD-affected cortex consisted of multiphasic burst discharges, which coincided with extracellular field potentials and lasted 150–800 ms. These epileptiform responses could be recorded at membrane potentials between −50 and −110 mV and were blocked by dl−2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (APV), indicating the involvement of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Isolated NMDA-mediated and APV-sensitive EPSPs could be recorded at membrane potentials negative to −70 mV, suggesting that NMDA receptors are activated at relatively negative membrane potentials. In comparison with the controls, polysynaptic IPSPs mediated by the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) type A and B receptor were either absent or reduced in peak conductance in microgyric cortex by 27% ( P < 0.05) and 17%, respectively. However, monosynaptic IPSPs recorded in the presence of ionotropic glutamate receptor antagonists revealed a similar efficacy in NMD and control cortex, indicating that GABAergic neurons in microgyric cortex get a weaker excitatory input. Our data indicate that the expression of epileptiform activity in NMD-affected cortex rather results from an imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission than from alterations in the intrinsic membrane properties. This imbalance is caused by an increase in NMDA-receptor–mediated excitation in pyramidal neurons and a concurrent decrease of glutamatergic input onto inhibitory interneurons.