Neuroscience Techniques Flashcards
What is an example of a single cell?!
Cell lines or oocytes
What are the types of preparation for neuroscience techniques?!
Single cell Brain/spinal cord slices Larger in-vitro: brainstem/spinal cord Intact nerve In-vivo Invertebrate
What is the advantages of spinal cord or brainstem slices?!
Local synaptic connections are intact
Which type of preparation is the most realistic?!
In-vivo (the whole animal)
What can intracellular recording techniques measure?!
Resting membrane potential
Action potential
Firing rate
Synaptic connections
What is the advantage of filling a neurone with a dye?!
Can be viewed under light microscopy so the neurone can be reconstructed
What do extra cellular recording techniques record?!
Voltage
Action potential firing rate
Field potentials (synaptic potentials)
What does the voltage clamp technique control?!
Voltage
In the voltage clamp experiment what does the recording electrode measure?!
The membrane potential
What does the voltage clamp amplifier inject?!
A current into the axon
What does the voltage clamp technique measure?!
Changes in current
How is the patch-clamp recording carried out?!
A glass electrode is placed against the membrane of a neurone and a suction force is applied forming a high resistance seal between the glass and the membrane
How large is the current flowing through a single channel?!
Miniscule - called a microscopic current
What type of techniques can be performed on a brain slice preparation?!
Current-clamp
Voltage-clamp
Patch-clamp
Give two examples of large cells.
Molluscan giant neurones
Xenopus oocytes
Why is the two electrode voltage clamp useful?!
For voltage clamping large cells
When can two electrode voltage clamp not be used?!
With neurones in the mammalian brain due to their small size
What do the two electrodes in two electide voltage clamp do?!
One records voltage and the other injects current
What can xenopus oocytes be used for?!
Injected with exogenous mRNA sequences and they will synthesis the foreign protein in large quantities
Eg. Injecting the mRNA sequence of ion channels and they will express functional ion channels
