Design for a binary synapse

Abstract

The mammalian rod transfers a binary signal, the capture of 0 or 1 photon. In this issue of Neuron, Sampath and Rieke show in mouse that the rod's tonic exocytosis in darkness completely saturates a G protein cascade to close nearly all postsynaptic channels. A full-sized photon event supresses exocytosis sufficiently to allow approximately 30 postsynaptic channels to open simultaneously. Thus, the synapse behaves like a digital gate, whose hallmark is reliability and resistance to noise.