A dendrite-resolved, in vivo transfer function from spike patterns to dendritic Ca2+

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bioRxiv. 2026 Jan 21;. doi: 10.64898/2026.01.18.700189

A dendrite-resolved, in vivo transfer function from spike patterns to dendritic Ca2+ Wong-Campos LabLavis Lab

Wu X, Lee BH, Park P, Wong-Campos JD, Xu J, Plutkis SE, Lavis LD, Cohen AE

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Abstract

Dendrites transform local electrical activity into intracellular Ca2+ signals that drive plasticity1,2, yet the voltage→Ca2+ mapping during natural behavior remains poorly defined. Here, we measure this transfer function via simultaneous voltage and Ca2+ imaging throughout the dendritic arbors of hippocampal CA2 pyramidal neurons in behaving mice. Dendritic Ca2+ exhibited a hierarchical activation pattern dominated by back-propagating action potentials: simple spikes primarily drove somatic and proximal Ca2+, whereas complex spikes produced larger somatic Ca2+ signals and propagated farther into distal dendrites, sometimes in a branch-selective manner. Dendrite-restricted co-activation of voltage and Ca2+ without concurrent somatic events was rare. A biophysics-inspired model accurately predicted local Ca2+ transients from local voltage waveforms. Our data and model provide a quantitative understanding of when – and why – dendritic Ca2+ signals in CA2 pyramidal cells arise during behavior.

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bioRxiv preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2026/01/21/2026.01.18.700189

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A dendrite-resolved, in vivo transfer function from spike patterns to dendritic Ca2+

Abstract

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