The goal of this project is to enable students in the physiology laboratory to study the temporal patterning of extracellularly recorded neuronal activity. This is to be accomplished through the use of a high speed 12 bit analog to digital conversion board and complementary display and analytical software. Processing would be handled by a 386 SX computer and high resolution hard copy would be obtained with a laser printer.Specific applications include recording patterns of activity in cockroach leg sensory axons in response to mechanical stimulation of leg spines and changes in cockroach ventral nerve cord activity in response to cercal nerve stimulation. The software will enable isolation of single units through window (amplitude) discrimination and waveshape recognition as well as analysis of action potential frequencies. These capabilities are expected to significantly enhance students' understanding of neuronal coding by allowing them to collect and quantitatively analyze temporal patterning over longer periods of time than would be the case when using a digital storage oscilloscope.
