Xu Ninglong Team Reports Direct Evidence in Science That Dendrites Participate in Abstract Rule Decisions in Living Animals

A team led by Xu Ninglong at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Brain Science reports in Science that, using two-photon imaging in awake mice performing a rule-switching task while simultaneously recording the apical dendrite and soma of the same neuron, dendrites encode abstract rules while somata encode sensory input. The two signals undergo nonlinear integration within the cell to drive decisions. Optogenetic inhibition of apical dendrites significantly weakened decision signals, suggesting dendritic computation is essential for flexible cognition and offering biological clues for brain-inspired multi-compartment AI architectures and for studying disorders with impaired cognitive flexibility such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.