It has recently been demonstrated that ß-catenin plays a key role in dendritic morphogenesis (Yu and Malenka, SFN abs., 2003). Here, we examine the detailed morphological changes in the dendritic arbor of cultured hippocampal neurons elicited by overexpression of ß-catenin and simulate the electrophysiological consequences of these changes. Cells expressing a stabilized form of ß-catenin fused to GFP (GFP-ß-catenin) had significantly larger dendritic surface area and length than control cells. Other morphological measurements of size (i.e. bifurcations, termination tips, and branch order) revealed the same trend. To investigate the effect of GFP-ß-catenin expression on electrophysiological properties we converted digitized traces of cultured hippocampal neurons into the GENESIS computational simulator format using parameters which evenly distributed voltage-dependent channels across the cells’ membranes. In simulated current clamp experiments, somata were injected with a normalized current such that the ob...