The effects of an acute intoxicating concentration of ethanol (50 mM) on the electrotonic membrane properties of hippocampal dentate granule neurons were studied using a system model incorporating electrotonic coupling between neurons. Uncoupling of cells by other alcohols has been shown in several tissues. The system model allows a quantitative estimation of the changes in coupling and other neuronal electrotonic properties. The input impedance of a neuron was measured from the voltage decay of a short hyperpolarizing current pulse. An analytic expression of the input impedance has been written incorporating somatic, dendritic, and electrical coupling parameters. Using this particular current stimulation, the modelling results showed that ethanol selectively increased the junctional resistance by more than 2.5 times, hence uncoupling the neurons. A 30% increase in the final time-constant, tau 0, was also obtained from the voltage transient. Other parameters were not significantly affected. A neuronal model without electrotonic coupling to other neurons gave rise to physiologically impossible values for the membrane resistance and capacitance. With resistive and capacitive coupling in the model, uncoupling did not occur with ethanol. It is concluded that ethanol uncouples neurons by increasing the effective gap junctional resistance in dentate granule neurons.
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