TY - JOUR TI - An NMDA receptor-dependent mechanism for subcellular segregation of sensory inputs in the tadpole optic tectum AU - Hamodi, Ali S AU - Liu, Zhenyu AU - Pratt, Kara G A2 - Calabrese, Ronald L VL - 5 PY - 2016 DA - 2016/11/23 SP - e20502 C1 - eLife 2016;5:e20502 DO - 10.7554/eLife.20502 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20502 AB - In the vertebrate CNS, afferent sensory inputs are targeted to specific depths or layers of their target neuropil. This patterning exists ab initio, from the very beginning, and therefore has been considered an activity-independent process. However, here we report that, during circuit development, the subcellular segregation of the visual and mechanosensory inputs to specific regions of tectal neuron dendrites in the tadpole optic tectum requires NMDA receptor activity. Blocking NMDARs during the formation of these sensory circuits, or removing the visual set of inputs, leads to less defined segregation, and suggests a correlation-based mechanism in which correlated inputs wire to common regions of dendrites. This can account for how two sets of inputs form synapses onto different regions of the same dendrite. Blocking NMDA receptors during later stages of circuit development did not disrupt segregation, indicating a critical period for activity-dependent shaping of patterns of innervation. KW - axon segregation KW - activity-dependent KW - multisensory KW - subcellular KW - NMDA receptor KW - optic tectum JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -