Coding and decoding with dendrites

•Dendrites are able to support a wide range of integration modes in a semi-independent manner.•The discovery of local plasticity rules points to dendrites as the functional plasticity unit in the brain.•Dendrites are likely to underlie stimulus selectivity in working memory and facilitate the alloca...

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Published in:Journal of physiology, Paris Vol. 108; no. 1; pp. 18 - 27
Main Authors: Papoutsi, Athanasia, Kastellakis, George, Psarrou, Maria, Anastasakis, Stelios, Poirazi, Panayiota
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: France Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2014
Subjects:
Action Potentials - physiology
Amygdala
Animals
CREB
Dendrites
Dendrites - physiology
Dendritic integration
Dendritic morphology
Dendritic plasticity
Humans
Memory
Neuronal Plasticity - physiology
Prefrontal cortex
Synapses - physiology
Dendritic integration
CREB
Amygdala
Memory
Dendrites
Prefrontal cortex
Dendritic morphology
Dendritic plasticity
ISSN:0928-4257, 1769-7115, 1769-7115
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:•Dendrites are able to support a wide range of integration modes in a semi-independent manner.•The discovery of local plasticity rules points to dendrites as the functional plasticity unit in the brain.•Dendrites are likely to underlie stimulus selectivity in working memory and facilitate the allocation of fear memories via the formation of dendritic engrams. Since the discovery of complex, voltage dependent mechanisms in the dendrites of multiple neuron types, great effort has been devoted in search of a direct link between dendritic properties and specific neuronal functions. Over the last few years, new experimental techniques have allowed the visualization and probing of dendritic anatomy, plasticity and integrative schemes with unprecedented detail. This vast amount of information has caused a paradigm shift in the study of memory, one of the most important pursuits in Neuroscience, and calls for the development of novel theories and models that will unify the available data according to some basic principles. Traditional models of memory considered neural cells as the fundamental processing units in the brain. Recent studies however are proposing new theories in which memory is not only formed by modifying the synaptic connections between neurons, but also by modifications of intrinsic and anatomical dendritic properties as well as fine tuning of the wiring diagram. In this review paper we present previous studies along with recent findings from our group that support a key role of dendrites in information processing, including the encoding and decoding of new memories, both at the single cell and the network level.
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ISSN:0928-4257
1769-7115
1769-7115
DOI:10.1016/j.jphysparis.2013.05.003