SOFTWARE-CONTROLLED TESTING FOR ANTIDROMIC ACTIVATION OF SINGLE NEURONS

This paper describes a technique which allows the determination of the shape of action potentials initiated spontaneously, orthodromically o r antidromically, without the distorting effects on shape that may be produced by changes in latency of activation or by signal averaging te chniques. Software-controlled stimulation allows precise control of pa rameters for antidromic collision testing. The method allows selective sampling of a single action potential from a rapidly discharging cell ,from a population of similar cells or from a evoked action potential among spontaneous activity. It minimizes jitter in the antidromic peri -event histogram by presenting an antidromic stimulus at precise and r eproducible delays following either a spontaneous or orthodromically e voked action potential.