ADVANCED COMPUTER CONTROL OF ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION

A special configuration of the data acquisition software package Spike 2 (CED) has been developed to allow interactive computer control of a current-clamp intracellular recording system. Using the 1401plus dedic ated computer (CED) as an interface between the electrophysiological a pparatus and a personal computer it was possible to have keyboard-cont rol of intracellular current injection, single and repetitive pulse ne rve stimulation, pressure ejection as well as on-going data acquisitio n. An analysis program was designed using the Spike2 programming langu age for the investigation of resting membrane properties, spike charac teristics and synaptic input profiles of enteric neurones. The hardwar e configurations and associated software of our set-up may be of inter est to electrophysiologists wishing to implement or extend a computer- based experimental system.