Target-dependent structural changes in sensory neurons of Aplysia accompany long-term heterosynaptic inhibition

FMRFamide evokes both short-term and long-term inhibition of synapses between mechanosensory and motor neurons in Aplysia. We report here, using dissociated cell culture and low-light epifluorescence video microscopy, that depression lasting 24 hr of sensorimotor synapses evoked by four brief applications of FMRFamide is accompanied by a significant loss of sensory cell varicosities and neurites. These structural changes in the sensory cells require the presence of the target motor cell L7. Because the loss of structures known to contain transmitter release sites correlates significantly with the changes in the amplitude of the excitatory postsynaptic potential in L7, our results suggest that the structural changes evoked by FMRFamide reflect a loss of synaptic contacts. Thus, long-term depression parallels long-term facilitation of the sensorimotor synapse produced by serotonin in that both forms of heterosynaptic plasticity involve target-dependent modulation of the number of presynaptic varicosities.