Classical conditioning

Soma

Conditioning

Synaptic plasticity

Plasticity

Neuroscience

Biology

Excitatory postsynaptic potential

Statistics

Fear conditioning

Metaplasticity

Associative learning

Receptor

Inhibitory postsynaptic potential

Biochemistry

Biological neural network

Thermodynamics

Physics

Psychology

Mathematics

Homeostatic plasticity

Nonsynaptic plasticity

Amygdala

Dendritic spike

Neuroplasticity

Science

Experience-dependent changes in behavior are mediated by long-term functional modifications in brain circuits. Activity-dependent plasticity of synaptic input is a major underlying cellular process. Although we have a detailed understanding of synaptic and dendritic plasticity in vitro, little is known about the functional and plastic properties of active dendrites in behaving animals. Using deep brain two-photon Ca2+ imaging, we investigated how sensory responses in amygdala principal neurons develop upon classical fear conditioning, a form of associative learning. Fear conditioning induced differential plasticity in dendrites and somas regulated by compartment-specific inhibition. Our results indicate that learning-induced plasticity can be uncoupled between soma and dendrites, reflecting distinct synaptic and microcircuit-level mechanisms that increase the computational capacity of amygdala circuits.

Compartmentalized dendritic plasticity during associative learning