English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Central neurons initiate action potentials (APs) in the axon initial segment(AIS), a compartment characterized by a high concentration of voltage-dependention channels and specialized cytoskeletal anchoring proteins arranged in aregular nanoscale pattern. Although the AIS was a key evolutionary innovationin neurons, the functional benefits it confers are not clear. Using a mutationof the AIS cytoskeletal protein \beta IV-spectrin, we here establish an invitro model of neurons with a perturbed AIS architecture that retains nanoscaleorder but loses the ability to maintain a high NaV density. Combiningexperiments and simulations we show that a high NaV density in the AIS is notrequired for axonal AP initiation; it is however crucial for a high bandwidthof information encoding and AP timing precision. Our results provide the firstexperimental demonstration of axonal AP initiation without high axonal channeldensity and suggest that increasing the bandwidth of the neuronal code andhence the computational efficiency of network function was a major benefit ofthe evolution of the AIS.

An axon initial segment is required for temporal precision in action potential encoding by neuronal populations