Calcium ions generate versatile intracellular signals that control key functions in all types of neurons. Imaging calcium in neurons is particularly important because calcium signals exert their highly specific functions in well-defined cellular subcompartments. In this Primer, we briefly review the general mechanisms of neuronal calcium signaling. We then introduce the calcium imaging devices, including confocal and two-photon microscopy as well as miniaturized devices that are used in freely moving animals. We provide an overview of the classical chemical fluorescent calcium indicators and of the protein-based genetically encoded calcium indicators. Using application examples, we introduce new developments in the field, such as calcium imaging in awake, behaving animals and the use of calcium imaging for mapping single spine sensory inputs in cortical neurons in vivo. We conclude by providing an outlook on the prospects of calcium imaging for the analysis of neuronal signaling and plasticity in various animal models.

Learning is primarily mediated by activity-dependent modifications of synaptic strength within neuronal circuits. We discovered that place fields in hippocampal area CA1 are produced by a synaptic potentiation notably different from Hebbian plasticity. Place fields could be produced in vivo in a single trial by potentiation of input that arrived seconds before and after complex spiking. The potentiated synaptic input was not initially coincident with action potentials or depolarization. This rule, named behavioral time scale synaptic plasticity, abruptly modifies inputs that were neither causal nor close in time to postsynaptic activation. In slices, five pairings of subthreshold presynaptic activity and calcium (Ca) plateau potentials produced a large potentiation with an asymmetric seconds-long time course. This plasticity efficiently stores entire behavioral sequences within synaptic weights to produce predictive place cell activity.

Feature selective firing allows networks to produce representations of the external and internal environments. Despite its importance, the mechanisms generating neuronal feature selectivity are incompletely understood. In many cortical microcircuits the integration of two functionally distinct inputs occurs nonlinearly via generation of active dendritic signals that drive burst firing and robust plasticity. To examine the role of this processing in feature selectivity we recorded CA1 pyramidal neuron membrane potential and local field potential in mice running on a linear treadmill. We found that dendritic plateau potentials are produced by an interaction between properly timed input from entorhinal cortex (EC3) and hippocampal CA3. These conjunctive signals positively modulate the firing of previously established place fields and rapidly induce novel place field formation to produce feature selectivity in CA1 that is a function of both EC3 and CA3 input. Such selectivity could allow mixed network level representations that support context-dependent spatial maps.