Nitric oxide and cGMP can produce either synaptic depression or potentiation depending on the frequency of presynaptic stimulation in the hippocampus

Nitric oxide (NO) has been suggested to play the role of retrograde messenger during long-term potentiation (LTP) in hippocampus. In support of this idea, NO induces LTP when paired with a weak tetanus (50 Hz). An additional criterion that has been proposed for NO being a retrograde messenger is that it should also elicit long-lasting enhancement when paired with low-frequency stimulation of the presynaptic fibers. In the present study, we have tested this prediction. We find that NO produces long-lasting depression rather than potentiation when paired with low-frequency stimulation (0.25 Hz). A similar long-lasting depression is produced by 8-Br-cGMP, a cGMP analog, suggesting that NO may produce its effect by activating soluble guanylyl cyclase. These results demonstrate that NO and cGMP modulate synaptic transmission in the hippocampus by frequency-dependent mechanisms, and suggest that NO is most suitable as a retrograde messenger for LTP when the presynaptic neuron fires at high frequencies. By contrast, carbon monoxide (CO) elicits long lasting enhancement at both low and high frequencies.