Ninglong Xu Team Decodes Subcellular Compartmental Coding in Cortical Pyramidal Neurons in Science

Ninglong Xu's team at the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a mouse study in Science reporting a functional division of labor between dendrites and the soma of cortical pyramidal neurons in processing task rules and sensory information. Within the same neuron, apical dendrites preferentially encoded abstract task rules inferred by the animal, while the soma preferentially represented sensory stimuli; decision-choice signals were present in both compartments, suggesting that dendrite-soma cross-compartment integration plays a key role in flexible decisions based on abstract rules.