Probability of release of vesicle at synapse

Range connections with a single release site ~0.7: with 4 release sites 0.25-0.4: ~10 release sites ~0.1 unitless
Organism vertebrates
Reference Harris JJ, Jolivet R, Attwell D. Synaptic energy use and supply. Neuron. 2012 Sep 6 75(5):762-77. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.08.019. p.766 right column top paragraphPubMed ID22958818
Comments p.763 right column bottom paragraph:"For a synapse with a single release site (e.g., to the orange cell in Figure 3), if each time a presynaptic action potential arrives a vesicle is released with probability p, then for p < 1 information is lost during synaptic transmission." p.766 right column top paragraph:" Figure 3E (red lines) predicts that the optimal release probability is lower the more synapses that a single axon makes onto the same postsynaptic neuron. Strikingly, just such a relationship between release probability and number of release sites has been reported by Hardingham et al. (2010) (their Figure 7C) for cortical synapses and Branco et al. (2008) (their Figure 2D) for hippocampal synapses, with a mean release probability of ~0.7 at connections with a single release site declining to ~0.25–0.4 for connections with 4 release sites and to ~0.1 at connections with ~10 release sites."
Entered by Uri M
ID 111652