• Valerio Francioni and Mark T Harnett.
• McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. Electronic address: valeriof@mit.edu.
• Neuroscience. 2022 May 1; 489: 185-199.

AbstractDecades of experimental and theoretical work support a now well-established theory that active dendritic processing contributes to the computational power of individual neurons. This theory is based on the high degree of electrical compartmentalization observed in the dendrites of single neurons in ex vivo preparations. Compartmentalization allows dendrites to conduct semi-independent operations on their inputs before final integration and output at the axon, producing a "network-in-a-neuron." However, recent in vivo functional imaging experiments in mouse cortex have reported surprisingly little evidence for strong dendritic compartmentalization. In this review, we contextualize these new findings and discuss their impact on the future of the field. Specifically, we consider how highly coordinated, and thus less compartmentalized, activity in soma and dendrites can contribute to cortical computations including nonlinear mixed selectivity, prediction/expectation, multiplexing, and credit assignment.Copyright © 2022 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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