PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jan H. Kirchner
AU  - Lucas Euler
AU  - Julijana Gjorgjieva
TI  - A local activity-dependent learning rule shapes dendritic morphologies and synaptic organization
AID  - 10.1101/2022.05.24.493217
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.05.24.493217
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/25/2022.05.24.493217.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/25/2022.05.24.493217.full
AB  - Dendritic branching and synaptic organization shape single neuron and network computations. How they emerge simultaneously during brain development as neurons become integrated into functional networks is still not mechanistically understood. Here, we propose a computational model in which dendrite growth and the organization of synapses arise from the interaction of local activity-dependent plasticity and activity-independent cues from potential synaptic partners. Consistent with experiments, three phases of dendritic growth – overshoot, pruning, and stabilization – emerge naturally in the model. The model generates biologically-realistic dendritic morphologies under normal and perturbed learning rules, and synapses cluster spatially according to the correlated activity they experience. We demonstrate that activity-dependent and -independent factors influence dendritic growth throughout development, suggesting that early developmental variability can affect mature morphology. Our model generates dendrites with approximately optimal wiring length consistent with experimental measurements. Therefore, a single mechanistic model generates realistic dendritic development and accounts for synaptic organization from correlated inputs. Our work suggests concrete mechanistic components underlying dendritic growth and synaptic formation and removal in function and dysfunction.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.