# Behavioral relevance of active dendritic mechanisms of integration and plasticity

> **NIH NIH R01** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $542,531

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
The dendritic trees of neurons in the brain's cortex conduct elemental brain functions such as information
processing and learning. Research in brain slices has provided a wealth of information about the dendritic
mechanisms that could be operating in behaving animals to integrate, and alter the strength of, synaptic inputs
from presynaptic sources. Key among these mechanisms are back-propagating action potentials and nonlinear
integration of synaptic inputs leading to dendritic spiking, which confer to the dendritic tree a host of local and
global plasticity and signaling possibilities. Numerous alluring models of information processing and learning
rules have arisen as a result of these in vitro findings, and supported by this R01, we have begun to determine
which of these mechanisms are at work in awake, behaving animals. The present proposal leverages recent
technical advances used and developed by the PI that enable functional imaging of calcium transients with
single dendritic branch resolution and of glutamate input with synaptic scale resolution in the hippocampus of
head-restrained mice performing spatial behaviors in a virtual-reality interface. Using these methods, the
research proposed in this grant application will allow us to bridge two disconnected areas of neuroscience
research: research characterizing the firing patterns and changes in firing patterns of hippocampal neurons
during behavior, and research in reduced preparations investigating the mechanisms underlying firing and
synaptic plasticity. Specifically, we aim to determine the behavioral relevance and synaptic basis of
hippocampal dSpikes. This will allow testing of models of plasticity which have been developed based on in
vitro data, across a wide range of parameter space, to finally establish which learning mechanisms are
behaviorally relevant.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9893024
- **Project number:** 5R01MH101297-07
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Daniel A Dombeck
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $542,531
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2013-08-16 → 2024-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9893024

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9893024, Behavioral relevance of active dendritic mechanisms of integration and plasticity (5R01MH101297-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9893024. Licensed CC0.

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