title: Active dendrites: colorful wings of the mysterious butterflies.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Center for Learning and Memory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. djohnston@mail.clm.utexas.edu
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: Rishikesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Narayanan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002080:Butterflies / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003116:Color; D003712:Dendrites / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology*; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000166:cytology*