The Inside Track: Privileged Neural Communication through Axon-Carrying Dendrites

Whether morphology tailors functional properties of pyramidal neurons is not completely understood. In this issue of Neuron, Thome et al. (2014) show that, in hippocampal pyramidal neurons, axons frequently originate from basal dendrites rather than the soma, constituting a “privileged” channel for synaptic inputs located in these axon-carrying dendrites