Book Recommendations?

[Matthew Crema]

Hello,

Can anyone recommend a good book on electric circuits for neurophysiology?

I have seen circuits called "voltage clamps" and "current clamps" that I
would like to understand in more detail.

I have a strong background in general intrumentation, and I'd like some
material that deals with the particular issues involved in making
neuronal recordings in vivo. Specifically, I need to design a circuit
that can be used interchangeably for both micro-stimulation AND
recording of neuronal activity.

Thank You.
-Matt

 

[Matthew Crema]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. You are correct in saying that an electrode
is stuck into the creature's brain (in this case a Long-Evans rat, we
have IACUC approval). These electrods are small enough (and well
sheilded) so that we can actually stick them into individual cells and
record the activity of these single cells.

Much research has been done involving the "recording" of neuronal
activity. Less has been done with "microstimulation" (ie inducing the
neurons to fire by injecting pulses of current). I have done a fairly
extensive literature search of articles like these.

The catch here is that we want a circuit that will selectively stimulate
or record from the same electrode without having to remove it.
Furthermore, we want to have 64 or 128 of these cricuits operating on
individual neurons at the same time. We also want to mount the circuit
board on the rat's head, and yet it needs to be lightweight enough to
not affect the rat's behavior.

I have found very few circuits that have been designed for this kind of
function. One promising one that I found in a yet unpublished paper
(found on a website) looks like this:

-------------------------------
R
|---\/\/\--|
| C2 |
|----||----|
C1 | |
Neuron -----||-----Opamp---------To Computer
|
|
Stimulation --FET
Switch
|
Control Signal---

-------------------------------

(Assuming the formatting is right) It looks to me like they are using
the opamp (with negative feedback and inverting input to GND) to record
the neuron's activity. They are able to stimulate the same neuron by
turning on the transistor switch with a control signal.

I'd like to find a few more papers like this, but it looks like it
hasn't been done much, so I thought I'd take a step back and try to find
a book on general circuits/electrophysiology.

Thanks again.
-Matt

 

[Matthew Crema]

I just read that over and I meant "non-inverting input is tied to GND"
where I typed "inverting input is tied to GND".

Sorry.
-Matt