Clustered inputs maximize efficiency for stable place field encoding in hippocampal pyramidal neurons

A new bioRxiv preprint from the Poirazi Lab (FORTH-IMBB, Heraklion) and the Polleux Lab (Columbia University), with contributions from the Quantitative Imaging Group, maps the three-dimensional distribution of every excitatory and inhibitory synapse across the dendritic arbor of individual mouse CA1 pyramidal neurons in vivo and uses biophysically detailed computational models to test how synaptic organization shapes place field encoding.

The study finds that excitatory synapses, but not inhibitory synapses, are non-uniformly distributed across the dendritic tree of CA1 pyramidal neurons. Biophysical models built on these measurements show that the spatial clustering of excitatory inputs supports more efficient and stable place field encoding than uniformly distributed inputs.

Luke Hammond contributed quantitative imaging and synapse-mapping methods developed during earlier work at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University.

Clustered inputs maximize efficiency for stable place field encoding in hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Tasciotti S, Iascone DM, Chavlis S, Hammond LA, Katz Y, Losonczy A, Polleux F, Poirazi P. bioRxiv. 2026.

bioRxiv →

← All news Next →