Introduction to Electrophysiological Methods and Instrumentation

Dr. Bretschneider is a neurobiologist, currently as guest researcher at Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands). His research over the years has focused on the field of sensory physiology of aquatic animals, and teaching on sensory physiology and electrophysiology. His current lab interest is in bat research, with recording methods and instrumentation as a main focus. Dr. de Weille has been an Assistant Professor at the Institut des Neurosciences at the University of Montpellier. His research, carried out at the Universities of Nice and later Montpellier, was centred for many years on the pharmacology of ion currents. He developed interests in molecular biology and fluorescence imaging. He has been a consultant with a cancer pharmacology start-up, Beta-Innov (Paris), until his retirement.

Part I: Electricity.
Electrical Quantities.
Components, Unwanted Properties.
Circuits, Schematics, Kirchoff's Laws.
Composition of Similar Components; Attenuators.
Voltage and Current Measurement.
Compostion of Unequal Components: Filters.

Part II: Electronics.
Active Elements.
Vacuum Tubes and Semiconductors.
Semiconductor Devices.
Diodes and Transistors.
Other Semiconductor Types.
Amplifiers, Gain, Decibels and Saturation.
Noise, Hum, Interference and Grounding.
Differential Amplifiers, Block Diagrams.
Operational Amplifiers, Feedback.
Electronic Filters.
Electrophysiological Preamplifiers.
Power Supplies and Signal Sources.
Electronic Voltmeters.
The Cathode Ray Oscilloscope.
Digital Electronics, Logic.
A/D and D/A Conversions.
Computers.

Part III: Electrochemistry.
Introduction, Properties of Electrolytes.
The Metal/Electrolyte Interface.
Electrokinetic Processes.
Liquid Junction Potentials.
Membrane Potentials.
Electrodes: Practical Aspects.
Volume Conduction: Electric Fields in Electrolyte Solutions.

Part IV: Signal Analysis
Introduction.
Analysis of Analogue Potentials.
Analysis of Action Potential Signals.
Analysis of Nerve Membrane Data.

Appendices.
A. Symbols, abbreviations and codes
B. Symbols for circuit diagrams
C. Electrical safety in electrophysiological set-ups
D. The use of CRT monitors in visual experiments.
E. Complex numbers and complex frequency.
F. The mathematics of Markov chains.
G. Recursive (non-causal) filters.
H. Pseudo code to calculate the macroscopic current and dwell time distributions from a transition matrix.
J. Referred and recommended literature.