What is it about?
Action potentials are the electrical signals that initiate neurotransmitter release at synaptic terminals. We demonstrate that these electrical signals are not uniform in shape, and can broaden during high frequency neuronal firing patterns. This is caused by inactivation of potassium channels in the axon. Inactivation was caused by the Kvbeta1 subunit. Loss of this subunit greatly impairs synaptic transmission.
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Why is it important?
The first example of a mechanism upstream of vesicles fusion machinery that alters synaptic plasticity in hippocampal neurons.
Perspectives
Electrical impulses in neurons are often thought of as digital signals like those in computer transistors (0,1) that simply initiate the release of chemical literature. This publication is part of a growing literature that is revealing these signals encode information that powerfully influences synaptic transmission.
Michael Hoppa
Dartmouth College
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This page is a summary of: The potassium channel subunit K
v
β1 serves as a major control point for synaptic facilitation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, November 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2000790117.
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