PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - A Kerlin
AU  - B Mohar
AU  - D Flickinger
AU  - BJ MacLennan
AU  - C Davis
AU  - N Spruston
AU  - K Svoboda
TI  - Functional clustering of dendritic activity during decision-making
AID  - 10.1101/440396
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 440396
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/10/440396.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/10/440396.full
AB  - The active properties of dendrites support local nonlinear operations, but previous imaging and electrophysiological measurements have produced conflicting views regarding the prevalence of local nonlinearities in vivo. We imaged calcium signals in pyramidal cell dendrites in the motor cortex of mice performing a tactile decision task. A custom microscope allowed us to image the soma and up to 300 μm of contiguous dendrite at 15 Hz, while resolving individual spines. New analysis methods were used to estimate the frequency and spatial scales of activity in dendritic branches and spines. The majority of dendritic calcium transients were coincident with global events. However, task-associated calcium signals in dendrites and spines were compartmentalized by dendritic branching and clustered within branches over approximately 10 μm. Diverse behavior-related signals were intermingled and distributed throughout the dendritic arbor, potentially supporting a large computational repertoire and learning capacity in individual neurons.