@article {70268,
	title = {A dendrite-resolved, <I>in vivo</I> transfer function from spike patterns to dendritic Ca2+},
	journal = {bioRxiv},
	year = {2026},
	month = {2026 Jan 21},
	abstract = {<p>Dendrites transform local electrical activity into intracellular Ca2+ signals that drive plasticity1,2, yet the voltage{\textrightarrow}Ca2+ mapping during natural behavior remains poorly defined. Here, we measure this transfer function via simultaneous voltage and Ca2+ imaging throughout the dendritic arbors of hippocampal CA2 pyramidal neurons in behaving mice. Dendritic Ca2+ exhibited a hierarchical activation pattern dominated by back-propagating action potentials: simple spikes primarily drove somatic and proximal Ca2+, whereas complex spikes produced larger somatic Ca2+ signals and propagated farther into distal dendrites, sometimes in a branch-selective manner. Dendrite-restricted co-activation of voltage and Ca2+ without concurrent somatic events was rare. A biophysics-inspired model accurately predicted local Ca2+ transients from local voltage waveforms. Our data and model provide a quantitative understanding of when {\textendash} and why {\textendash} dendritic Ca2+ signals in CA2 pyramidal cells arise during behavior.</p>
},
	doi = {10.64898/2026.01.18.700189},
	url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2026/01/21/2026.01.18.700189},
	author = {Wu, Xiang and Lee, Byung Hun and Park, Pojeong and Wong-Campos, J. David and Xu, Junjie and Plutkis, Sarah E. and Lavis, Luke D. and Cohen, Adam E.}
}
