Synaptic Plasticity and NMDA Receptors as Coincidence Detectors
Excitatory synapses onto cortical pyramidal neurons, particularly those located on dendritic spines, use NMDA receptors and AMPA receptors to decide when to strengthen or weaken connections in response to activity.
Hebbian Versus Non-Hebbian Pathways to Synaptic Strengthening
Cortical pyramidal neurons integrate inputs from many synapses distributed across branched dendritic trees, with plasticity governed by both global spikes and local coactivity patterns.
Different Dendritic Compartments Use Different Learning Rules
Layer 5 pyramidal neurons in mouse motor cortex, with thick apical dendrites reaching toward the cortical surface and bushy basal dendrites near the soma, serve as the central model for compartment-specific learning rules.
Imaging Techniques to Reveal Compartment-Specific Learning Rules
Neuroscientists combine advanced genetic tools and optical imaging to monitor hundreds of individual synapses and their parent neurons in the motor cortex of behaving mice over multiple days of learning.
Functional Roles of Compartment-Specific Learning in Cortical Computation
Pyramidal neurons positioned within cortical hierarchies receive both feedforward sensory evidence and feedback predictions, with apical and basal dendrites specializing in different information streams.