Sub-cellular population imaging tools reveal stable apical dendrites in hippocampal area CA3

Jason J Moore ^1,2, Shannon K Rashid ³, Emmett Bicker ³

⁰Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Health, New York, NY, 10016, USA. Jason.Moore@nyulangone.org.

Nature Communications +

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January 28, 2025

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

Pyramidal neuron dendrites exhibit distinct spatial tuning and activity rates during navigation. Apical dendrites are more stable and better for decoding position, suggesting compartment-specific functions in the hippocampus.

Area Of Science

Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience

Background

Pyramidal neurons in the hippocampus have distinct apical and basal dendrites.
These dendritic compartments receive different inputs, suggesting functional specialization.

Purpose Of The Study

To investigate compartment-specific functional diversity in hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons during navigation.
To develop and validate computational tools for analyzing sub-cellular calcium signals in vivo.

Main Methods

In vivo calcium imaging of soma, apical, and basal dendrites in mouse CA3 pyramidal neurons during head-fixed navigation.
Development of computational tools for automated dendritic segmentation and fluorescence trace extraction.
Validation of methods on sparse labeling and synthetic data to determine optimal labeling density.

Main Results

The developed method accurately detected rapid, local dendritic activity.
Dendrites exhibited robust spatial tuning, with higher activity rates than soma.
Apical dendrites demonstrated greater stability across days and superior performance in decoding animal position.

Conclusions

Population-level differences between apical and basal dendrites suggest distinct input-output functions and computations.
The developed computational tools enable high-throughput analysis of sub-cellular activity and its relation to behavior.
Findings support compartment-specific computations within CA3 pyramidal neurons during navigation.