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SUMMARY:Parallel dendritic processing and hippocampal spatial representati
 ons - Balazs Ujfalussy\, Dept. Biophysics\, KFKI RIPNP\, Hungarian Academy
  of Sciences
DTSTART:20101019T150000Z
DTEND:20101019T160000Z
UID:TALK27518@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr. Cristina Savin
DESCRIPTION:A fundamental question in understanding neuronal computations 
 is how dendritic events influence the output of the neuron. Different form
 s of integration of neighbouring and distributed synaptic inputs\, isolate
 d dendritic spikes and local regulation of synaptic efficacy suggest that 
 individual dendritic branches may function as independent computational su
 bunits. We study how these local computations influence the output of the 
 neuron and shape neural representations in the hippocampus. Using a simple
  computational model\, we demonstrate that triggering somatic firing by a 
 relatively small dendritic branch requires the amplification of local even
 ts by dendritic spiking and synaptic plasticity. The moderately branching 
 dendritic tree of granule cells seems optimal for this computation since l
 arger dendritic trees favor local plasticity by isolating dendritic compar
 tments\, while reliable detection of individual dendritic spikes in the so
 ma requires a low branch number. We demonstrate that these\nparallel compu
 tations generate multiple\, independent place fields characteristic for hi
 ppocampal granule cells\, and suggest that the same mechanism contributes 
 to the global remapping of hippocampal place fields across different conte
 xts.
LOCATION:Cambridge University Engineering Department\, CBL Rm #438 (http:/
 /blg.eng.cam.ac.uk/t/bin/view/Public/Directions)
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