[5] Dendrodendritic synapses have been studied extensively in the olfactory bulb of rats where it is believed they help in the process of differentiating smells.
[5] Dendrodendritic synapses have also been found to have similar effects on olfactory input from the glomeruli of the antennal lobe of insects.
This dendritic function is an alternative modulatory system to that of pre-synaptic inhibition which is presumed to also help differentiate different contrast in the visual sense.
[8] In experiments where deafferentation or axotomy was performed in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of cats it was found that pre-synaptic dendrites began to form to compensate for the lost axons.
The development of presynaptic dendrites forming dendrodendritic synapses in the Cerebellar Cortex of mice has also been found following the differentiation of that region.
[8] Partial recovery within the LGN has been shown thus supporting the validity of dendrodendritic synapses between neighboring relay neurons functionality.