Experiments were performed in a recording chamber on the stage of an Axioskop 2FS microscope with infrared DIC optics for visualization of whole-cell patch clamp recording. Neurons of the ACC in the layer II, III and V received afferent input from the thalamus [
63]. In the present study, excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) were recorded from the layer II/III neurons with an Axon 200B amplifier (Molecular Devices, CA) and the stimulations were delivered by a bipolar tungsten stimulating electrode placed in the layer V of the ACC slices [
3,
10,
62]. EPSCs were induced by repetitive stimulations at 0.02 Hz and neurons were voltage clamped at -70 mV. The recording pipettes (3–5 MΩ) were filled with solution containing (mM) 145 K-gluconate, 5 NaCl, 1 MgCl
2, 0.2 EGTA, 10 HEPES, 2 Mg-ATP, and 0.1 Na
3-GTP (adjusted to pH 7.2 with KOH). In the most of experiment, picrotoxin (100 μM) was present to block GABA
A receptor-mediated inhibitory currents. In some experiment, LTP was induced in the absence of picrotoxin. Three kinds of LTP induction paradigms were used within 12 min after establishing the whole-cell configuration to prevent wash out effect on LTP induction [
3]. The first protocol was pairing 80 presynaptic pulses at 2 Hz with postsynaptic depolarization at + 30 mV (referred to as the pairing protocol, [
24]. The second protocol was paired 3 presynaptic stimuli which caused 3 excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) (10 ms ahead) with 3 postsynaptic APs elicited by 0.5 nA, 10 ms current steps at 30 Hz, paired 15 times every 5s in the current clamp mode [
32]. The third protocol was theta-burst stimulation (5 trains of burst with 4 pulses at 100 Hz, 200 ms interval; repeat 4 times with interval of 10 s) [
3]. NMDA receptor-mediated component of EPSCs was pharmacologically isolated in ACSF containing: CNQX (20 μM), glycine (1 μM) and picrotoxin (100 μM). The patch electrodes contained (in mM) 102 cesium gluconate, 5 TEA chloride, 3.7 NaCl, 11 BAPTA, 0.2 EGTA, 20 HEPES, 2 MgATP, 0.3 NaGTP, and 5 QX-314 chloride (adjusted to pH 7.2 with CsOH). Neurons were voltage clamped at -30 mV and NMDA receptor-mediated EPSCs were evoked at 0.05 Hz. Access resistance was 15–30 MΩ and was monitored throughout the experiment.