# How Active Dendrites Enable Prediction and Context Integration in Neurons - August 18, 2021

**URL:** <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-active-dendrites-enable-prediction-and-context-integration-in-neurons-august-18-2021/8894>\
**Category:** Current Research\
**Created:** [August 23, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-active-dendrites-enable-prediction-and-context-integration-in-neurons-august-18-2021/8894 "2021-08-23T20:48:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![clai](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/clai/32/5365_2.png) [@clai](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/clai)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-active-dendrites-enable-prediction-and-context-integration-in-neurons-august-18-2021/8894/1 "2021-08-23T20:48:55Z")

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[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/GrfywTHa_IM/maxresdefault.jpg "How Active Dendrites Enable Prediction and Context Integration in Neurons - August 18, 2021") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrfywTHa_IM)

Subutai Ahmad reviews the biology behind active dendrites and explains how Numenta models them. He first presents an overview of active dendrites in pyramidal neurons by describing various experimental findings. He describes the impact of dendrites on the computation performed by neurons, and some of the learning (plasticity) rules that have been discovered. He shows how all this forms the substrate for the HTM neuron, proposing that dendritic computation is the basis for prediction and very flexible context integration in neural networks.

Papers:  
[Bartlett Mel, Neural Computation 1992](https://direct.mit.edu/neco/article/4/4/502/5650/NMDA-Based-Pattern-Discrimination-in-a-Modeled)  
[Poirazi, Brannon & Mel, Neuron, 2003](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12670427/)

[Numenta Neurons Paper 2016](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncir.2016.00023/full)  
[Numenta Columns Paper 2017](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncir.2017.00081/full)

[“Predictive Coding of Novel versus Familiar Stimuli in the Primary Visual Cortex”](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/197608v1)  
[“Continuous online sequence learning with an unsupervised neural network model”](https://direct.mit.edu/neco/article/28/11/2474/8502/Continuous-Online-Sequence-Learning-with-an#.WC4U8TKZMUE)  
[‘Unsupervised real-time anomaly detection for streaming data”](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231217309864)  
[“Active properties of neocortical pyramidal neuron dendrites”](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23841837/)

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**Author:** ![richardbaxter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/richardbaxter/32/4815_2.png) [@richardbaxter](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/richardbaxter)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2021, 3:34am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-active-dendrites-enable-prediction-and-context-integration-in-neurons-august-18-2021/8894/2 "2021-09-01T03:34:34Z")

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Goetz, L., Roth, A., & Häusser, M. (2021). Active dendrites enable strong but sparse inputs to determine orientation selectivity. _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_ , _118_ (30).

> **[Active dendrites enable strong but sparse inputs to determine orientation...](https://www.pnas.org/content/118/30/e2017339118)**
>
> An active pyramidal cell model, constrained by physiological and anatomical data, was used to simulate dendritic integration in vivo. The model shows that small numbers of strong excitatory synapses can trigger dendritic Na+ and NMDA spikes....