Abstract
This chapter aims at investigating the functional implications of the biologically realistic and widespread case in which a single inhibitory axon forms multiple (10–20) synaptic contacts on the dendrites of its target neuron. We analyzed the impact of multi-site dendritic inhibition on the neurons’ output and, thus, gained several counterintuitive insights into the biophysical and functional implications of such connectivity pattern. In the course of the chapter, we propose a functional role for very distal dendritic inhibition; demonstrate the regional effect of multiple, rather than single, inhibitory synapses in terms of the spread of their collective shunting effect in the dendritic tree; and suggest an explanation as to why, in both cortex and hippocampus, the total number of inhibitory dendritic synapses per pyramidal cell is smaller (about 20 %) than that of excitatory synapses. This chapter, thus, provides a fresh perspective on the biophysical design principles that govern the operation of inhibition in dendrites.
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Gidon, A. (2014). Biophysics of Synaptic Inhibition in Dendrites. In: Cuntz, H., Remme, M., Torben-Nielsen, B. (eds) The Computing Dendrite. Springer Series in Computational Neuroscience, vol 11. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8094-5_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8094-5_18
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