Morphological differences along the radial gradient of hippocampal area CA2 pyramidal neuron dendrites

Abstract Hippocampal area CA2 has recently emerged as a critical region for social recognition memory. Furthermore, this understudied region has been implicated in psychiatric diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. There has been accumulating evidence indicating that the pyramidal neurons (PNs) in area CA2 exhibit functional specializations that correlate with somatic position in stratum pyramidale (sp). In this study, we investigated the morphological differences in dendritic architecture of CA2 PNs with a focus on the radial gradient, i.e., along the deep–superficial axis of the sp. We conducted a comprehensive morphological analysis including Sholl intersection profiles, branching order distributions, root angle distributions, and dendritic cable lengths. We found that CA2 PNs have fewer oblique dendrites and a larger number of tuft-like dendrites as compared to CA1 PNs. Furthermore, within the CA2 population, we found that many of the dendritic structural features gradually changed along the radial axis from deep to superficial somatic location, indicating a continuum of dendritic morphology rather than two sharply defined subtypes of pyramidal neurons. This morphological characterization may serve as a starting point to better understand the corresponding functional organization of CA2. The gradual difference between deeper and superficial CA2 PNs suggests a continuum of their computational capabilities beyond two binary functional classes. In brief Using several methods, we examine the dendritic morphology of over 130 CA2 and CA1 pyramidal neurons and find that many properties such as the cable length and terminal numbers of the dendritic arbors vary as a with the location of the soma in the pyramidal layer. Highlights We use scholl analysis, graph theory and machine learning techniques to quantify the different dendritic morphologies of CA2 pyramidal neurons. Many properties of CA2 pyramidal neuron apical dendrites vary as a function of somatic location in the pyramidal layer. More superficial CA2 pyramidal neurons have longer oblique apical dendrites, and shorter tuft dendrites.