• Yoko Momose-Sato and Katsushige Sato.
• Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Nutrition, Kanto Gakuin University, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-8503, Japan. Electronic address: yms@kanto-gakuin.ac.jp.
• Neuroscience. 2017 Dec 4; 365: 33-47.

AbstractOne of the earliest activities expressed within the developing central nervous system is a widely propagating wave-like activity, which we referred to as the depolarization wave. Despite considerable consensus concerning the global features of the activity, its physiological role is yet to be clarified. The depolarization wave is expressed during a specific period of functional synaptogenesis, and this developmental profile has led to the hypothesis that the wave plays some roles in synaptic network organization. In the present study, we tested this hypothesis by inhibiting the depolarization wave in ovo and examining its effects on the development of functional synapses in vagus nerve-related brainstem nuclei of the chick embryo. Chronic inhibition of the depolarization wave had no significant effect on the developmental time course, amplitude, and spatial distribution of monosynaptic excitatory postsynaptic potentials in the first-order nuclei of the vagal sensory pathway (the nucleus of the tractus solitarius (NTS) and the contralateral non-NTS region), but reduced polysynaptic responses in the higher-order nucleus (the parabrachial nucleus). These results suggest that the depolarization wave plays an important role in the initial process of functional synaptic expression in the brainstem, especially in the higher-order nucleus of the cranial sensory pathway.Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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