Cg. Carlson et Jw. Krieger, A BASE-LINE DETECTION METHOD FOR ANALYZING TRANSIENT ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL EVENTS, Journal of neuroscience methods, 67(2), 1996, pp. 211-220
A baseline detection method has been developed that identifies and def
ines event transitions for whole-cell voltage or current ('transient')
events that are produced by the activity of ion channel ensembles, Th
e method utilizes a variety of iterative techniques that independently
determine, for each event, several output parameters that are ultimat
ely referrable to the mean and variance of each pre-event baseline. Ex
amination of miniature endplate potentials using the baseline detectio
n method provided the following output parameters for each transient e
vent, pre-event mean and variance; rise time; peak amplitude and durat
ion: a determination of whether the decay phase was best fit by a one-
or two-component negative exponential function; time constants for th
e slow and/or fast decay components: percent contribution of the slow
component to the decay phase; and the predicted peak amplitude determi
ned by extrapolation of the least squares fit to the decay phase. Join
t probability density representations involving the rise time and peak
amplitudes of miniature endplate potentials indicated the power of th
is multivariate approach in identifying and isolating specific event c
lasses. The baseline detection method is particularly advantageous for
analyzing records containing multiple classes of event amplitudes, an
d provides a reproducible statistical standard for the analyses of tra
nsient events that are characteristic of whole-cell electrophysiologic
al recordings.