William Kath - The Gating of Dendritic Spikes in Hippocampal CA1 Pyramidal Neurons

The Gating of Dendritic Spikes in Hippocampal CA1 Pyramidal Neurons

William L. Kath
Applied Mathematics
Northwestern University

In computational models of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons with active dendrites, distal synaptic inputs trigger dendritic spikes, but in many cases these spikes do not propagate reliably to the soma to produce output action potentials in the axon. The computational models show, moreover, that the probability of axonal action potential initiation increases dramatically if the distal dendritic inputs are accompanied by small amounts of more proximal synaptic input. In this case, the propagation of the dendritic spikes appears to be gated by the more proximal inputs. The mechanisms for this phenomenon will be discussed, as well as experimental results designed to test the predictions of the computational models.