Also depends on what you want to measure - under constant current, you
measure changes in membrane voltage in response to stimuli; under
voltage clamp you can examine currents. They give somewhat different
kinds of information, one can be more or less useful than the other
depending on your experiment. I'm not sure if one kills your patched
neuron faster than the other, although it is certainly (and
lamentably) true that overstimulation can "blow" your neuron.
Cheers,
Ian
On Feb 22, 7:20 am, usene... from out-of-phase.de (Christian Wilms) wrote:
> > Why would you use a constant current, vs a constant voltage stimulator
> > (or vice versa) for exciting nervous tissue?
>> My (admittedly simple) understanding is that the current output is less
> dependent on changes in the resistance of the stimulating electrode. As
> we use microelectrodes (glass) for stimulating, changes in pipette
> resistance during longer experiments does present a possible problem.
>> Anybody have a more throrough explaination?
>> All the best, Christian
