Evidence that associative interactions between synapses during the induction of long-term potentiation occur within local dendritic domains.

The present study evaluates whether the associative interactions between synapses that lead to long-term potentiation and depression (LTP and LTD) can occur between spatially segregated synapses of the medial and lateral temporodentate pathway of the rat. Coconditioning of crossed and ipsilateral pathways resulted in LTP of the crossed system only when the current sinks of the two conditioned pathways overlapped sufficiently. Likewise, conditioning of an ipsilateral pathway alone resulted in LTD of the crossed pathway only when those current sinks overlapped sufficiently. These observations support the idea that associative events that lead to LTP or LTD can be restricted to a local dendritic domain. The postsynaptic cell can therefore serve as more than one unit of integration for synaptic modification.