Non linear dendritic processing in cortical pyramidal neurons
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1
Technion Medical School, Israel
Neurons in the central nervous system typically posses an elaborated dendritic tree, which serves to receive and integrate the vast input information arriving to the neuron. Understanding the way information is processed in dendrites is crucial for comprehending the input/output transformation functions of individual CNS neurons, and in turn learning how cortical networks code and store information. Cortical pyramidal neurons, which are the major excitatory neurons in the cortical tissue, have a typical dendritic tree consisting of a large apical trunk which branches to form the oblique and tuft branches, and a basal tree branching directly from the soma. In the present work we concentrated on understanding how tuft dendrites process their incoming information. Tuft dendrites are the main target for feedback inputs innervating neocortical layer-5 pyramidal neurons but their properties remain obscure. We report the existence of NMDA-spikes in the fine distal tuft dendrites that otherwise did not support the initiation of calcium spikes. Both direct measurements and computer simulations showed that NMDA-spikes are the dominant mechanism by which distal synaptic input leads to firing of the neuron and provide the substrate for complex parallel processing of top-down input arriving at the tuft. These data lead to a new unifying view of integration in pyramidal neurons in which all fine dendrites, basal and tuft, integrate inputs locally through the recruitment of NMDA receptor channels relative to the fixed apical calcium and axo-somatic sodium integration points.
Conference:
Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2010, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 25 Feb - 2 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Oral presentations
Citation:
Schiller
J
(2010). Non linear dendritic processing in cortical pyramidal neurons.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2010.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.03.00002
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Received:
17 Feb 2010;
Published Online:
17 Feb 2010.
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Correspondence:
Jackie Schiller, Technion Medical School, Haifa, Israel, nemoABS01@frontiersin.org