The development of transmission at an identified molluscan synapse. II. A quantal analysis of transmission.

1. A quantal analysis of transmission at the identified molluscan synapse, V2-RPr1, was performed during development. The study was intended to determine the pre- and postsynaptic contributions to the marked changes in transmitter release described in the previous report. 2. The success of the quantal analysis was predicated on overcoming the problems associated with extending the quantal analysis technique to central synapses. This involved adopting the following strategies: 1) using a low-noise recording system coupled with electrical filtering; 2) establishing objective criteria for failures recognition; and 3) using three methods to determine the quantal content: amplitude histograms, failures analysis, and the coefficient of variation. 3. The correlation of the results obtained from an analysis of amplitude histograms and from failures analysis were highly significant (P less than 0.01) at all times studied. A similar significant correlation was observed between the failures method and the coefficient of variation methods. 4. The amplitude of the quantal unit declined progressively during development (range: 131-25 microV), in parallel with the decrease in the postsynaptic input resistance (range: 103-5 M omega). 5. At both frequencies of stimulation (0.02 and 0.2 Hz), there is an approximately 20-fold increase in quantal content over the period of the study. Frequency facilitation at the synapse is due to an increase in quantal content. 6. Possible structural correlates for the developmental increase in quantal content were discussed.