Topic: dendritic branches

Animals can switch rapidly between multiple well-learned tasks without being explicitly instructed on which task to perform, a cognitive function termed un-cued task switching. This function relies on higher-order cortical areas to maintain and update the task rule representation, and use this representation to gate the sensorimotor pathway. How different brain regions and neuronal types interact to achieve this function is not well understood. We investigated a collection of modular recurrent neural networks (RNNs) trained to perform an analog of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a clas

Feedforward sensory processing in the brain is generally construed as proceeding through a hierarchy of layers, each constructing increasingly abstract and invariant representations of sensory inputs. This interpretation is at odds with the observation that activity in sensory processing layers is heavily modulated by contextual signals, such as cross modal information or internal mental states. While it is tempting to assume that such modulations bias the feedforward processing pathway towards detection of relevant input features given a context, this induces a dependence on the contextual st

A key question in neuroscience is how neurons compute their specialized output from their synaptic inputs. Another key question is whether this computation is shaped by non-linear dendritic integration. To answer these questions, it would be ideal to map synaptic activity while recording dendritic and somatic responses. We developed a strategy to simultaneously measure glutamate synaptic release and postsynaptic responses in L2/3 pyramidal neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex. We sparsely coexpressed two sensors: the green membrane sensor iGluSnFR3, reporting presynaptic release of gluta