Dendrites Shed Their Duli Image

摘要

What goes on behind drawn curtains in the tight community of the brain? Consider the lacy, branching appendages of nerve cells known as dendrites. Dendrites have long had a reputation as solid but dull citizens of the neural metropolis: bean counterswho passively add up the information they receive through the synapses dotting their surface. But it isn't easy to study dendrites directly, and some researchers have suspected that, like what goes on in the banker's basement at midnight, the secret lives of dendrites are more complex and interesting than their public image suggests.