Question

You are studying synaptic transmission and discover a treatment that reduces the proportion of failures at your synapse (the fraction of presynaptic action potentials that do not produce a postsynaptic response).

a.) Propose mechanisms that might explain what is changed by this treatment. Include discussion of interpretations from classical Quantal Analysis as well as more recent work on Silent Synapses.

b.) Propose one or more experiments that could test what is actually changed at your synapse by this treatment. Include a brief description of possible results and how you would interpret the results.