Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published January 30, 2011 | Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

The membrane chamber: A new type of in vitro recording chamber

Abstract

In vitro brain slice electrophysiology is a powerful and highly successful technique where a thin slice is cut from the brain and kept alive artificially in a recording chamber. The design of this recording chamber is pivotal to the success and the quality of such experiments. Most often one of two types of chambers is used today, the interface chamber or the submerged chamber. These chambers, however, have the disadvantage that they are limited in either their experimental or their physiological properties respectively. Here we present a new working principle for an in vitro chamber design which aims at combining the advantages of the classical designs whilst overcoming their disadvantages. This is achieved by using a semipermeable membrane on which the slice is placed. The membrane allows for a fast flow of artificial cerebrospinal fluid of up to at least 17 ml/min. Due to a Bernoulli effect, this high speed flow also causes a 64% increase in flow of solution across the membrane on which the slice rests. The fact that the membrane is transparent introduces the possibility of wide field inverted optical imaging to brain slice electrophysiology. The utility of this setup was demonstrated in the recording of local field potential, single cell and voltage sensitive dye imaging data simultaneously from an area smaller then 1/8mm^2. The combination of all these features in the membrane chamber make it a versatile and promising device for many current and future in vitro applications, especially in the regard to optical imaging.

Additional Information

© 2010 Elsevier B.V. Received 17 August 2010; revised 11 October 2010; accepted 24 October 2010. Available online 12 November 2010. The authors would like to thank Matthias Furler for providing the CAD drawings, Dr. Ole Paulsen, Dr. Carl Petersen and Dr. Maria Carroll for valuable feedback as well as Dr. Christof Koch for his support. The research was financially supported by the Swiss Life Foundation, the Swiss Study Foundation and the Daniel Falkner Research Grant.

Attached Files

Supplemental Material - figure2.jpg

Supplemental Material - figure_1.jpg

Files

figure2.jpg
Files (191.9 kB)
Name Size Download all
md5:ab9ad6f997f272573d58813c64dd9ce5
82.5 kB Preview Download
md5:180037eea10921d17af4422a3d1468df
49.9 kB Preview Download
md5:a0b17553bcba8c83fce9a43b4410688e
5.9 kB Preview Download
md5:c49ccef80f51a39b4decb408e5fb3198
53.6 kB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023