Two-photon neurotransmitter uncaging for the study of dendritic integration

Abstract

Neurons transform the information arising from up to thousands of synaptic inputs into specific spiking patterns. Nonlinear dendritic integration is a crucial step in this process and is thought to increase the computational ability of neurons. However, studying how complex spatiotemporal patterns of synaptic inputs drive neuronal spiking is technically challenging. Two-photon neurotransmitter uncaging allows researchers to activate sequences of single synapses with high spatiotemporal precision and thus systematically examine how single and multiple synaptic activation patterns may recruit dendritic nonlinearities. Here, we describe the theoretical and practical considerations of using two-photon uncaging to mimic synaptic activation and monitor the electrical and biochemical signaling in dendrites when evoked by various synaptic patterns.