Abstract
Nerve terminals are generally considered to be the destination points for electrical signals, which propagate unidirectionally from the soma to nerve terminals. We found that small hyperpolarizations or depolarizations (∼10 mV) generated under physiological conditions in rat nerve terminals backpropagated up the axon (∼400–800 μm) and changed the threshold for initiating action potentials and thus firing patterns. These results suggest a mechanism for information processing in neurons and neuronal circuits.
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Acknowledgements
We thank J. Diamond, A. Elhamdani, B. McNeil, D. Robinson and J. Xu for insightful comments. This work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Intramural Program and a K22 Award to K.P. (K22NS051401).
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K.P. designed, performed and analyzed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. L.-G.W. supervised the project and wrote the manuscript.
Note: Supplementary information is available on the Nature Neuroscience website.
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Supplementary Figures 1–5, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Results (PDF 198 kb)
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Paradiso, K., Wu, LG. Small voltage changes at nerve terminals travel up axons to affect action potential initiation. Nat Neurosci 12, 541–543 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2301
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2301