The molecular layer of the dentate gyrus exhibits extensive circuit and receptor reorganization after entorhinal lesions and in Alzheimer's disease, including decreased adenosine (A1) receptor binding in the terminal zone of damaged perforant path fibers. We examined the adenosine-sensitivity of evoked synaptic activity recorded from the rat dentate gyrus molecular layer in hippocampal slices prepared after electrolytic lesions were placed in approximately the middle third of the entorhinal cortex. Extracellular field potentials (EFPs) recorded in slices prepared from animals two days post-lesion were small, upward-going, and exhibited paired-pulse potentiation, but by two weeks post-lesion EFPs had recovered to large, downward-going responses that exhibited paired-pulsed depression. EFPs recorded from two week post-lesion slices were about 2-fold more sensitive (P < or = 0.05) to exposure to adenosine when compared to EFPs recorded from slices from unlesioned animals. Adenosine-induced reduction of paired-pulse depression was similar between unlesioned and post-lesion slices. AChE histochemistry performed after recording revealed dense staining in the dentate gyrus molecular layer of post-lesion slices as compared to slices from unlesioned animals, confirming that sprouting of cholinergic fibers occurred as expected from previous entorhinal lesion studies. Autoradiography performed on adjacent slices showed a decrease in binding to A1-adenosine receptors in the dentate gyrus molecular layer in post-lesion slices as compared to slices from unlesioned animals, indicating that there was a loss of presynaptically located A1-adenosine receptors on damaged perforant pathway terminals. These results indicate that, in addition to the recovery of the major excitatory signal to the hippocampus after entorhinal cell loss, this signal is more sensitive to modulation by adenosine, suggesting an increase in A1-adenosine receptor efficacy in the reinnervated region.