Whilst I am no longer posting this blog at weekly intervals this definitely does not mean that my laboratory experiences are over – far from it!! I recently spent time with Dr. Rocio Finol-Urdaneta exploring aspects of electrophysiology.
Looking down the microscope at the equipment set up to measure the spiking of the neurons in response to stimuli, I could see the pipette piercing a group of neurons. When the spiking occurred it was represented on the computer screen nearby – where the spiking levels and frequency were represented in graph form.
Firing activity shown both diagrammatically and visually
Returning to some earlier research in more detail I have been investigating neuronal firing.
diagram of neuronal firing, Dottori Lab
As has been previously discussed in earlier posts, neuronal firing is the name given to the changes that take to enable neurons to communicate with each other. This neuronal communication occurs via electrical impulses and neurotransmitters.
As you can see from the chart above, the activity of the cultured sensory neurons can be measured in a number of ways relating to the bursts of activity, spike rate and active channels.
