Desarrollo de un software de estimulación y adquisición de señales eléctricas celulares, basado en una tarjeta comercial de adquisición de datos

Abstract

The study of the electric properties of the excitable cells and some not excitable, has been indispensable to know the mechanisms by which the electric activity induces and to regulate the cell function. Voltage and Current Clamp techniques are indispensable tools for the study of the electric behavior of the cells. In both techniques, is indispensable the standard stimulation protocols application, and simultaneously, to record the electric activity induced in the cells. Commonly Digital to Analog and Analog to Digital Convertes for the generation of the stimulation signals and the synchronous acquisition of the cellular electrical answer are used respectively. There are hardware and software for these purposes, which commonly are used by biophysicists and electrophysiologists. In addition to the high cost of the commercial software, the companies do not provide to the investigator the source programs, with which it is limited in the generation of stimulation protocols. In this work, we presented the development of an acquisition and stimulation software that allows generating protocols of stimulation and acquisition commonly used in electrophysiology at cellular level and in addition, allows to implement a diversity of stimulation signals of interest and that is not possible to make with the commercial packages. This software is designed to be used with Voltage and Current clamp amplifiers of any mark, generating and acquiring the appropriate signals with units and scales. The generation of the different protocols is made of way fast and easy in ambient Windows. The conversion card that was selected allows the acquisition of the faster electrophysiology signals due its bandwidth. The data are stored in compatible format with the programs of analyses commonly used in electrophysiology.