Metaplastic Regulation of CA1 Schaffer Collateral Pathway Plasticity by Hebbian MGluR1a-Mediated Plasticity at Excitatory Synapses onto Somatostatin-Expressing Interneurons1,2,3

Cortical GABAergic interneurons represent a highly diverse neuronal type that regulates neural network activity. In particular, interneurons in the hippocampal CA1 oriens/alveus (O/A-INs) area provide feedback dendritic inhibition to local pyramidal cells and express somatostatin (SOM). Under relevant afferent stimulation patterns, they undergo long-term potentiation (LTP) of their excitatory synaptic inputs through multiple induction and expression mechanisms. However, the cell-type specificity of these different forms of LTP and their specific contribution to the dynamic regulation of the CA1 network remain unclear. Here we recorded from SOM-expressing interneurons (SOM-INs) in the O/A region from SOM-Cre-Ai3 transgenic mice in whole-cell patch-clamp. Results indicate that, like in anatomically identified O/A-INs, theta-burst stimulation (TBS) induced a Hebbian form of LTP dependent on metabotropic glutamate receptor type 1a (mGluR1a) in SOM-INs, but not in parvalbumin-expressing interneurons, another mainly nonoverlapping interneuron subtype in CA1. In addition, we demonstrated using field recordings from transgenic mice expressing archaerhodopsin 3 selectively in SOM-INs, that a prior conditioning TBS in O/A, to induce mGluR1a-dependent LTP in SOM-INs, upregulated LTP in the Schaffer collateral pathway of pyramidal cells. This effect was prevented by light-induced hyperpolarization of SOM-INs during TBS, or by application of the mGluR1a antagonist LY367385, indicating a necessity for mGluR1a and SOM-INs activation. These results uncover that SOM-INs perform an activity-dependent metaplastic control on hippocampal CA1 microcircuits in a cell-specific fashion. Our findings provide new insights on the contribution of interneuron synaptic plasticity in the regulation of the hippocampal network activity and mnemonic processes.