Blue Brain Seminar - Dendrites of human neurons: old bugs and new features

Blue Brain is delighted to announce that the next seminar in the series in Neural Computation, will be on ‘Dendrites of human neurons: old bugs and new features’.
The seminar will be given by Albert Gidon, Ph.D.

Abstract:
In comparison to other mammalian species, layers 2 and 3 of the human cerebral cortex are disproportionately thick. Consequently, the pyramidal neurons in these layers have large and elaborated dendritic trees. We studied the physiology of these dendrites and found that a "bug" previously described in rodents, where distal dendritic inputs are severely attenuated at the soma, is even worse in human dendrites. We also discovered a new feature – dendritic calcium-mediated action potentials (dCaAPs). In my talk, I will discuss the unique properties of these dendrites and the consequences for the computational complexity emerging from their active properties.

Bio:
I completed my undergraduate in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) studying biology. Then, I did my Masters on modeling synaptic plasticity in dendritic, and PhD on the theory of synaptic inhibition in dendrites, both with Idan Segev in the HUJI. In this time, I also worked in close collaboration with the Blue Brain Project on the modeling of cortical neurons. In 2013, I started my postdoc with Matthew Larkum where finally I started to electrically record and image dendrites of cortical neurons from human and rodent brains with the aim to study the biophysical building blocks that constitute the algorithms of cellular function.