CRCNS: Functional imaging and computational models of place field integration in pyramidal cell dendrites

This project will employ recently developed experimental methods and computational models to elucidate synaptic integration in pyramidal neurons associated with mammalian spatial navigation in awake, behaving animals. In such neurons the dendrites constitute an elaborate network of branching processes involving tens of thousands of excitatory and inhibitory synapses that interact with a variety of voltage-gated ion channels. The pattern of synaptic inputs which arrive at the dendritic arbor and degree to which those inputs are processed by the arbor to drive place field firing during behavior is currently unknown. The goals of the project are first to 1) develop improved computational models of dendritic place cell firing constrained by current data imaging data and 2) establish new experimental techniques to image the inputs to pyramidal cells in the dendritic tree, at single spine resolution, during place field firing. Together the experiments and models will be used to 3) determine the degree to which local dendritic processing is involved in place cell firing.