Efficacy and connectivity of intracolumnar pairs of layer 2/3 pyramidal cells in the barrel cortex of juvenile rats

<jats:p>Synaptically coupled layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal neurones located above the same layer 4 barrel (‘barrel‐related’) were investigated using dual whole‐cell voltage recordings in acute slices of rat somatosensory cortex. Recordings were followed by reconstructions of biocytin‐filled neurones. The onset latency of unitary EPSPs was 1.1 ± 0.4 ms, the 20–80% rise time was 0.7 ± 0.2 ms, the average amplitude was 1.0 ± 0.7 mV and the decay time constant was 15.7 ± 4.5 ms. The coefficient of variation (<jats:sc>c.v.</jats:sc>) of unitary EPSP amplitudes decreased with increasing EPSP peak and was 0.33 ± 0.18. Bursts of APs in the presynaptic pyramidal cell resulted in EPSPs that, over a wide range of frequencies (5–100 Hz), displayed amplitude depression. Anatomically the barrel‐related pyramidal cells in the lower half of layer 2/3 have a long apical dendrite with a small terminal tuft, while pyramidal cells in the upper half of layer 2/3 have shorter and often more ‘irregularly’ shaped apical dendrites that branch profusely in layer 1. The number of putative excitatory synaptic contacts established by the axonal collaterals of a L2/3 pyramidal cell with a postsynaptic pyramidal cell in the same column varied between 2 and 4, with an average of 2.8 ± 0.7 (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic>= 8 pairs). Synaptic contacts were established predominantly on the basal dendrites at a mean geometric distance of 91 ± 47 μm from the pyramidal cell soma. L2/3‐to‐L2/3 connections formed a blob‐like innervation domain containing 2.8 mm of the presynaptic axon collaterals with a bouton density of 0.3 boutons per μm axon. Within the supragranular layers of its home column a single L2/3 pyramidal cell established about 900 boutons suggesting that 270 pyramidal cells in layer 2/3 are innervated by an individual pyramidal cell. In turn, a single pyramidal cell received synaptic inputs from 270 other L2/3 pyramidal cells. The innervation domain of L2/3‐to‐L2/3 connections superimposes almost exactly with that of L4‐to‐L2/3 connections. This suggests that synchronous feed‐forward excitation of L2/3 pyramidal cells arriving from layer 4 could be potentially amplified in layer 2/3 by feedback excitation <jats:italic>within</jats:italic> a column and then relayed to the neighbouring columns.</jats:p>