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Is action potential threshold lowest in the axon?

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Abstract

Action potential threshold is thought to be lowest in the axon, but when measured using conventional techniques, we found that action potential voltage threshold of rat cortical pyramidal neurons was higher in the axon than at other neuronal locations. In contrast, both current threshold and voltage threshold of the isolated somato-dendritic spike were substantially higher at the soma. These data indicate that action potential threshold is indeed lowest in the axon.

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Figure 1: Action potential voltage threshold appears highest in the axon.
Figure 2: Role of AIS Na+ channels in setting action potential voltage threshold.
Figure 3: Identification of somato-dendritic action potential threshold.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Roth for discussions. Financial support was received from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neuroscience, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Building 131, Garran Road, ACT 0200, Canberra, Australia

    Maarten H P Kole & Greg J Stuart

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  1. Maarten H P Kole
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  2. Greg J Stuart
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Contributions

M.H.P.K. carried out, analyzed and designed the experiments. G.J.S. provided support and helped with planning the experiments. M.H.P.K. and G.J.S. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Maarten H P Kole.

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Supplementary Figures 1 and 2 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 666 kb)

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Kole, M., Stuart, G. Is action potential threshold lowest in the axon?. Nat Neurosci 11, 1253–1255 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2203

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