LOW-COST DATA-ACQUISITION AND ANALYSIS PROGRAMS FOR ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY

In the laboratory, powerful personal computers are invaluable tools fo r data acquisition and analysis. The commercially available software f or these purposes is often very expensive and does not always conform to the experimenter's needs. In our laboratory, we have developed two programs for acquisition and analysis of electrophysiological data fro m retinal neurons, although they can be used for many other types of d ata acquisition and analysis as well. These programs were written for IBM PC-compatible computer systems and are being distributed as sharew are. Thus they are available for users to try out free of charge; if t hey are found to be of use, they can be purchased for a minimal cost. PATCHIT, the data-acquisition program can use one of several popular d ata-acquisition boards to simultaneously stimulate and record from an experimental preparation. TACK, the data analysis program was develope d to analyze data recorded by PATCHIT and other data-acquisition progr ams. PATCHIT and TACK are powerful programs which are competitive with similar commercially available programs, but are sold at a much lower cost. Details on the development and operation of these programs are presented in this paper.