Research paper
Injection of digitally synthesized synaptic conductance transients to measure the integrative properties of neurons

https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-0270(93)90119-CGet rights and content

Abstract

A novel technique was developed for injecting a time-varying conductance into a neuron, to allow quantitative measurement of the processing of synaptic inputs. In current-clamp recording mode, the membrane potential was sampled continuously and used to calculate and update the level of injected current within 60 μs, using a real-time computer, so as to mimic the electrical effect of a given conductance transient. Cellular responses to synthetic conductance transients modelled on the fast (non-N-methyl-d-aspartate) phase of the glutamatergic postsynaptic potential were measured in cultured rat hippocampal neurons.

References (22)

  • A.L. Hodgkin et al.

    A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve

    J. Physiol. (Lond.)

    (1952)
  • Cited by (192)

    • Reduced intrinsic excitability of CA1 pyramidal neurons in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transgenic rats

      2019, Brain Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      The Cm of neurons in the ventral hippocampus was 140.1 ± 16.22 pF vs. 150.8 ± 18.25 pF in control and HIV Tg rats, respectively (n = 13–15). The dynamic clamp method allows the dynamic control of the injected current with the purpose of better reproducing natural synaptic inputs in neurons (Chance and Abbott, 2009; Economo et al., 2010; Robinson and Kawai, 1993; Sharp et al., 1993). The current that is injected into the cell membrane using the dynamic clamp is calculated using computation methods and then readjusted with a high frequency (>10 kHz) to take into account the continuously changing membrane potential of the neuron (Chance and Abbott, 2009; Economo et al., 2010).

    • Energy-Efficient Information Transfer by Visual Pathway Synapses

      2015, Current Biology
      Citation Excerpt :

      We recorded the sequence of EPSCs evoked by the input action potential train (Figures 2A and 2B) and examined (in current clamp mode) the resulting action potential train that these EPSCs generated (Figure 2C). After converting the EPSCs to conductance changes, we used dynamic clamp [20] to inject into the cell soma the recorded conductance scaled up or down by different factors (see Experimental Procedures), so that we could examine the voltage response that would be produced by a larger or smaller synaptic conductance. The dynamic clamp technique uses a computer interface to calculate how much current needs to be injected into the cell to mimic the synaptic conductance while the membrane potential is changing.

    • Cerebellar Nuclei and Cerebellar Learning

      2021, Handbook of the Cerebellum and Cerebellar Disorders: Second Edition: Volume 3
    • Dynamic Clamp on a Windows PC

      2021, Methods in Molecular Biology
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text