Figure 5

Formal Comparison between Apical and Basilar Dendritic Trees. Data from basal (A) and apical (B) dendrites from CA1 pyramidal cells were grouped and frequency distributions were computed for different morphological parameters using the same bin width. Apical CA1 dendritic trees project at longer distances than basilar dendritic trees. This is also evident when comparing the number of branches and bifurcations at different paths from the soma (two upper panels). Interestingly, branches from both, apical and basal dendritic trees show a similar shape for the branch length distributions. This suggests that both dendritic trees are constructed upon equally long branches (panels in the fourth row). Thus, a longer tree is a consequence of an increased number of total branches.