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Microcircuit analysis of individual human brains by Patch clamp (CAT#: STEM-PET-0033-WXH)

Introduction

Neuronal microcircuits represent the backbone for computations of the brain. While it is well established that feedforward information flow between the cortical layers is rather stereotypical, intralaminar connectivity between different classes of neurons is more complicated and heterogeneous across brain regions.




Principle

The patch-clamp technique involves a glass micropipette forming a tight gigaohm seal with the cell membrane. The micropipette contains a wire bathed in an electrolytic solution to conduct ions. To measure single ion channels, a “patch” of membrane is pulled away from the cell after forming a gigaohm seal.

Applications

• Study of ionic currents in individual isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane.
• Study of excitable cells such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, muscle fibers, and pancreatic beta cells.
• Study of ion channels.

Procedure

1. Fabrication of glass electrodes
2. Measuring glass electrode resistance and compensating offset potential
3. Glass electrode contact to cell membrane and obtain a GΩ seal
4. Acquire and analyse recordings using the appropriate software.

Materials

Patch clamp system