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Abstract
The active properties of dendrites can support local nonlinear operations, but previous imaging and electrophysiological measurements have produced conflicting views regarding the prevalence and selectivity of local nonlinearities in vivo. We imaged calcium signals in pyramidal cell dendrites in the motor cortex of mice performing a tactile decision task. A custom microscope allowed us to image the soma and up to 300 μm of contiguous dendrite at 15 Hz, while resolving individual spines. New analysis methods were used to estimate the frequency and spatial scales of activity in dendritic branches and spines. The majority of dendritic calcium transients were coincident with global events. However, task-associated calcium signals in dendrites and spines were compartmentalized by dendritic branching and clustered within branches over approximately 10 μm. Diverse behavior-related signals were intermingled and distributed throughout the dendritic arbor, potentially supporting a large learning capacity in individual neurons.
Highlights
Neurons are bombarded by information from thousands of synaptic inputs, which are sculpted by the active properties of dendrites (Stuart and Spruston, 2015)
We found that nearby spines and segments of dendrite had similar behavioral selectivity, and that the branching structure of the dendritic tree compartmentalizes task-associated calcium signals
Stable and sparse neuronal labeling is required for high signal-to-noise ratio and accurate reconstructions of dendritic morphology
Summary
Neurons are bombarded by information from thousands of synaptic inputs, which are sculpted by the active properties of dendrites (Stuart and Spruston, 2015). The role of active dendrites in single-neuron computation remains unclear. Passive and active compartmentalization of input signals may divide the dendrite into computational subunits (Koch et al, 1982; Rall and Rinzel, 1973; Tran-Van-Minh et al, 2015), generating neurons capable of a variety of mathematical operations W. Mel, 1992; Poirazi et al, 2003; Shepherd and Brayton, 1987) These local dendritic operations could dramatically increase the capacity of individual neurons to store information (Archie and Mel, 2000; Poirazi and Mel, 2001)
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