Pitcher, M. N.; Gonzales, A. S. B.; Habib, R.; Feller, M. B.

During development, dendrites undergo structural plasticity in response to neural activity; however, whether spatiotemporal activity patterns can instruct dendritic growth remains unclear. Prior to vision, the developing mouse retina exhibits spontaneous retinal waves with a nasal propagation bias that mimics forward optic flow. Here, we reveal that starburst amacrine cells use direction-selective dendritic computations to transform this propagation bias into asymmetric dendrite growth, linking activity patterns to structural development.