The other half of Hebb: K⁺ channels and the regulation of neuronal excitability in the hippocampus

Historically, much attention has focused on the mechanisms of activity-dependent plasticity since the description of long-term potentiation by Bliss and Lomo in the early 1970s, while extrasynaptic changes have received much less interest. However, recent work has concentrated on the role of back-propagating action potentials in hippocampal dendrites in synaptic plasticity. In this review, we focus on the modulation of back-propagating action potentials by K⁺ currents in the dendrites of hippocampal cells. We described the primary K⁺-channel subunits and their interacting subunits that most likely contribute to these currents, and how these sites can be regulated by phosphorylation and other mechanisms. In conclusion, we provide a model for an alternative form of coincidence detection through K⁺ channels in the hippocampus.