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The cadherin/catenin complex is an important cell adhesion complex that been shown to have many important physiological functions during neural development and synaptic plasticity.In previous work,we showed that the cadherin/ catenin complex plays a critical role in mediating activity-dependent dendritic morphogenesis.Here,we use two different molecular manipulations to interfere with N-cadherin in hippocampal neurons,specifically,by transfecting neurons with a cDNA encoding the intracellular domain of N-cadherin [N-cad(intra)] or a N-cadherin RNA interference construct.Both of these molecular manipulations have similar morphological effects,in that they reduce total dendritic length and branch tip number.However,the effect of these manipulations on neuronal function,as detected by electrophysiological recording,is different.Neurons transfected with N-cad(intra) do not show any change in mEPSC amplitude or frequency,while neurons transfected with the N-cadherin RNA interference construct show a significant decrease in mEPSC amplitude and frequency.From these morphological and electrophysiological results,we conclude that although interfering with N-cadherin using N-cad(intra) or using the RNAi method have the similar morphological effects,the functional effects are significantly different.