A method for recording evoked local field potentials in the primate dentate gyrus in vivo

Recording evoked local field potentials (LFPs) in the hippocampus in vivo has yielded us useful information about the neural mechanisms of learning and memory. Although this technique has been used in studies of the hippocampus of rodents, lagomorphs, and felines, it has not yet been applied to the primate hippocampus. Here, we report a method for recording evoked LFPs in the hippocampus of monkeys. A stimulation electrode and a recording electrode were implanted in the perforant pathway and dentate gyrus, respectively, under the guidance of electrophysiological recording. With a low stimulus intensity just above the threshold, the potential appeared as a slow positive-wave component, which was regarded as field excitatory postsynaptic potential (putative fEPSP); as stimulation intensity increased, the fEPSP amplitude increased, followed by a sharp negative component which was regarded as putative population spike. When the coordinates of the recording or stimulation electrode were moved stepwise, we observed a systematic change in the waveforms of evoked LFPs; this change corresponded to the structural arrangement through which the electrode passed. In a test for short-term synaptic plasticity by paired-pulse stimulation, potentials evoked by the second pulse were influenced by the first one in a manner dependent on interpulse intervals. In a test for long-term synaptic plasticity by high-frequency stimulation, the slopes of the fEPSPs and the area of population spikes were increased for more than 1 h. These results indicate that the method developed in the present study is useful for testing theories of hippocampal functions in primates.