Project Title:

Development, improvement and optimization of electrophysiological equipment for glia physiology

Chaitanya Jha

Objectives:

Astrocytes display special electrophysiological properties with a low input resistance and extensive intercellular gap junctional coupling. Therefore, these cells require special recording equipment. Our goal is to develop such specialized equipment of amplifiers suitable for intracellular recordings with an almost complete electronic compensation of the recording electrode.

Methodology:

Electrophysiological recording instruments will be improved (based on an active bridge circuit combined with an improved compensation of the stray capacitance) and optimized for easy combination in simultaneous single and dual-cell patch clamp as well as sharp microelectrode recordings, in multisite extracellular recordings, in recordings with ion sensitive electrodes, for drug application with high spatiotemporal resolution, for rapid concentration-clamp based techniques, and precise single and multiple stimulation protocols. A fast drug application device with high temporal resolution will be developed and optimized for advanced optical recording techniques. For both new instruments will also be combined with glass fiber probes to allow optogenetic manipulations. In addition, electroporation-based protocols will be developed for selectively labelling or transfecting single identified neurons and glial cells.

Hans Reiner Polder
NPI electronic - Electronic Instruments for the Life Science