Dual simulation of a hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cell neuron

Here is an animation showing side-by-side simulations, performed using the NEURON simulation environment, of a CA1 pyramidal cell. Both simulations used the same morphology, but the cell on the left had a slightly negative gradient of the sodium channel density with respect to distance from the soma, while the cell on the right had a slightly positive gradient. The difference is sufficient to change the weakly backpropagating cell on the left into a strongly backpropagating cell. For more details of the simulations, and also related experimental results, see N. Golding, W. L. Kath and N. Spruston, Dichotomy of action potential backpropagation in CA1 pyramidal neuron dendrites, J. Neurophysiology, 86 (2001), pp. 2998-3010.