Proctolin activates an inward current whose voltage dependence is modified by extracellular Ca²⁺

The pentapeptide proctolin modulates the activity of the rhythmic pattern generators in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system. Proctolin strongly excites the lateral pyloric and the inferior cardiac neurons of the stomatogastric ganglion (STG), causing them to fire extended high-frequency bursts of action potentials (Hooper and Marder, 1987; Nusbaum and Marder, 1989a,b). We now report that proctolin depolarizes these cells maximally at membrane potentials close to the threshold for action potential generation. In voltage clamp, proctolin evokes an inward current, carried at least partially by Na⁺, that shows strong outward rectification. Removal of extracellular Ca²⁺ markedly increases the amplitude of the proctolin-evoked current and linearizes its current-voltage curve. The properties of the proctolin current make it ideally suited to contribute to the activity- dependent modulation of the pyloric network of the STG.