ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY OF A NEW-TYPE OF CELL WITHIN LAYER-II OF THE RAT LATERAL ENTORHINAL CORTEX IN-VITRO

Using a combination of intracellular recording and morphological techn iques, we describe the properties of a new cell type within layer II o f the lateral entorhinal cortex. A thick and bifurcating apical dendri te and thinner basal dendrites extended from the pyramidal shaped cell body. The axon ramified within all superficial layers of the lateral entorhinal cortex. These pyramidal-like cells exhibited 2 pronounced e lectrophysiological features; a high threshold for spike generation, a nd their prominent excitatory synaptic potentials with little inhibiti on following lateral entorhinal cortex stimulation. The electrophysiol ogical properties and the axonal morphology suggest that this cell typ e has a local information processing role within the lateral entorhina l cortex.