Active dendrites: colorful wings of the mysterious butterflies.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal had referred to neurons as the 'mysterious butterflies of the soul.' Wings of these butterflies--their dendrites--were traditionally considered as passive integrators of synaptic information. Owing to a growing body of experimental evidence, it is now widely accepted that these wings are colorful, endowed with a plethora of active conductances, with each family of these butterflies made of distinct hues and shades. Furthermore, rapidly evolving recent literature also provides direct and indirect demonstrations for activity-dependent plasticity of these active conductances, pointing toward chameleonic adaptability in these hues. These experimental findings firmly establish the immense computational power of a single neuron, and thus constitute a turning point toward the understanding of various aspects of neuronal information processing. In this brief historical perspective, we track important milestones in the chameleonic transmogrification of these mysterious butterflies.
Johnston
Daniel
D
Center for Learning and Memory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. djohnston@mail.clm.utexas.edu
Narayanan
Rishikesh
R
D000818:Animals; D002080:Butterflies / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003116:Color; D003712:Dendrites / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology*; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000166:cytology*