Bayesian morphometry of hippocampal cells suggests same-cell somatodendritic repulsion

Visual inspection of neurons suggests that dendritic orientation may be determined both by internal constraints (e.g. For example, basal dendrites of pyramidal cells appear nicely fan-out. This regular orientation is hard to justify completely with a general tendency to grow straight, given the zigzags observed experimentally. Instead, dendrites could (A) favor a fixed ("external") direction, or (B) repel from their own soma. To investigate these possibilities quantitatively, reconstructed hippocampal cells were subjected to Bayesian analysis.