Dear Wei,
John Clements and Angus Silver have written a
couple of good methods papers on the
variance-mean analysis. Here are two that will
give you both the background and practical advice on the technique:
J.D. Clements
Variance–mean analysis: a simple and reliable
approach for investigating synaptic transmission and modulation
Journal of Neuroscience Methods
Volume 130, Issue 2, 15 December 2003, Pages 115-125.
J.D. Clements and R.A. Silver
Unveiling synaptic plasticity: a new graphical and analytical approach
Trends in Neuroscience
Volume 23, Issue 3, 2000, pp. 105–113.
John has certainly made the use of this technique
easier to apply to your data by incorporating it
into the AxoGraph software. It is also available
in pClamp v.9 (I guess it is also available in v.10?).
Hopefully this will get you started.
Trevor
>Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 15:49:17 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Bill <connelly.bill from gmail.com>
>Subject: [Neuroscience] Re: variance-mean analysis
>To: neur-sci from net.bio.net>>Hi Wei,
>>I'm certainly no expert on the subject, and I have never done it, but
>I did have quite a long talk about it with John Clements who invented
>the technique. If no one more qualified comes forward, potentially if
>we put our heads together we can solve your problems. Certainly, if
>you've got the data already it shouldn't be a problem (though I hope
>you filled your cell with Cs, and QX-314, so no pesky active channels
>mess with things, though with such a mix electrotonically distant and
>close synapses, I'm not sure how good results like this can be).
>>On Sep 6, 4:40 pm, "Wei Zhang" <zha... from stanford.edu> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I tried to use the variance-mean analysis to describe n,p,q of hippocampal
> > synapses. Is there anybody who have had experience on this and would be
> > willing to help me work it out? Your help will be appreciated (like jamba
> > juice or starbucks gift card).
> > Wei
