I’ve been doing some reading in plasticity recently and found this paperin the Journal of Neuroscience by Evan Vickers, Mean-Hwan Kim, Jozsef Vigh, and Henrique von Gersdorff published last summer that looks at short term plasticity in the Inner Plexiform Layer mediating light adaptation. Working in goldfish (Carassius auratus auratus) retina (an amazing retina), Vickers et. al. used patch clamp recordings on Mb bipolar cell terminals with paired-pulse light stimulation. The idea was to examine and quantify plasticity in GABAergic lateral IPSCs with findings that show variation in the synaptic strength and latencies which correspond to adaptation and sensitization to surround temporal contrast. The authors found that there are separate retinal circuitry pathways, each with differing mechanisms of plasticity that help to tune temporal response curves with glutamate release from ON bipolar cell terminals. They conclude that “Short-term plasticity of L-IPSCs may thus influence the strength, timing, and spatial extent of amacrine and ganglion cell inhibitory surrounds”.