Researchers led by Xu Ninglong at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Center for
Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (Institute of
Neuroscience) report in Science on Oct. 16 that dendritic computation in
cortical neurons participates in cognitive processing for flexible
decision-making. The study finds distinct intraneuronal functional compartments:
apical dendrites encode abstract rules and infer hidden behavioral logic while
the soma processes sensory inputs, and their coordinated activity produces
decision output. Suppressing dendritic activity markedly weakens neurons’
decision output, supporting dendrites as a core computational substrate for
higher-order decisions and providing a theoretical basis for brain-inspired AI
system design.
