Abstract

Despite major progress in AI and its applications, we still don’t understand how the brain creates abstract ideas. To address this, we develop novel technologies to test biophysical theories and carry out in vivo measurements. Using a novel type of electrode, termed Dendode we measured the activity of small neuronal compartments called dendrites, where memories are stored, in freely behaving animals, for the first time. Surprisingly, we found that the dendrites generate ten times as many spikes as the neuronal soma, and dendrites contain a hybrid, analog-digital code. This necessitates a change in the textbook ideas of how neurons compute. Further, we designed a novel, immersive virtual reality that revealed neural algorithms of flexible computations on the fly. These findings have significant implications for artificial intelligence and drug discovery.