June 9, 2019
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Article

Branching angles of pyramidal cell dendrites follow common geometrical design principles in different cortical areas

Publicated to: Scientific Reports. 4 (5909): 5909- - 2014-08-01 4(5909), DOI: 10.1038/srep05909

Authors:

Bielza, C; Benavides-Piccione, R; López-Cruz, P; Larrañaga, P; DeFelipe, J
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Affiliations

CSIC, Inst Cajal, E-28002 Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Ctr Tecnol Biomed, Lab Cajal Circuitos Corticales, Madrid 28223, Spain - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Dept Inteligencia Artificial, Computat Intelligence Grp, E-28660 Madrid, Spain - Author
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Abstract

Unraveling pyramidal cell structure is crucial to understanding cortical circuit computations. Although it is well known that pyramidal cell branching structure differs in the various cortical areas, the principles that determine the geometric shapes of these cells are not fully understood. Here we analyzed and modeled with a von Mises distribution the branching angles in 3D reconstructed basal dendritic arbors of hundreds of intracellularly injected cortical pyramidal cells in seven different cortical regions of the frontal, parietal, and occipital cortex of the mouse. We found that, despite the differences in the structure of the pyramidal cells in these distinct functional and cytoarchitectonic cortical areas, there are common design principles that govern the geometry of dendritic branching angles of pyramidal cells in all cortical areas.
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Keywords

AnimalsArborsCerebral cortexCerebral-cortexDendritesDiversityHumansMiceMorphologyNeocortexNeuronsPyramidal cellsSpecializationsSpinesTests

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2014, it was in position 5/57, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Multidisciplinary Sciences.

Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.

Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2026-04-25:

  • Google Scholar: 22
  • WoS: 14
  • Scopus: 14
  • Europe PMC: 6
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-25:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 39.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 39 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 5.

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/35441/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 362
  • Downloads: 285
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (BIELZA LOZOYA, MARIA CONCEPCION) and Last Author (Defelipe, Javier).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Benavides-Piccione, Ruth.

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Awards linked to the item

This work was supported by funding from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grants TIN2010-20900-C04-04 to C. B. and P. L. and BFU2012-34963 to J.DF.), CIBERNED (CB06/05/0066 to J.DF.), the Cajal Blue Brain Project, Spanish partner of the Blue Brain Project initiative from EPFL (to C. B., P. L. and J.DF.) and the Human Brain Project (to J.DF., C. B. and P. L.). R. B.-P. was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSIC).
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