Spatial and temporal summation of local potentials at the axon hillock is critical to determining whether an action potential will fire or not. However, they are arithmetic processes that cannot increase the likelihood of an action potential occurring. The neuron has developed the ability to amplify local potentials so to increase the likelihood of an action potential occurring by the following mechanisms:

-Generating larger postsynaptic potentials at synapses located farther away from the axon hillock, -Dendritic integration zones, which integrate local postsynaptic potentials prior to their arrival at the axon hillock, and -Glial cells, which prevent released neurotransmitters from escaping the synaptic cleft and thereby increasing the strength of neurotransmitter stimulation.