Electrophysiology
Electrophysiology is part of the Wiki learning path. Electrophysiology provides the low-noise electrical measurement framework used by many single-pore nanopore experiments.
Core concepts
- A voltage clamp can hold transmembrane voltage while measuring current.
- Single-channel recordings require stable membranes, clean electrodes, shielding, and low-noise amplifiers.
- Current traces contain baseline current, event signals, drift, and noise components.
- Metadata such as voltage, bandwidth, sampling rate, temperature, and buffer must be recorded.
Measurement workflow
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Prepare the chamber, electrodes, buffer, and shielding. |
| 2 | Form or verify a membrane or chip-supported pore system. |
| 3 | Measure baseline current and RMS noise before adding sample. |
| 4 | Record events and annotate changes in voltage, sample addition, and pore state. |
Typical applications
- Biological nanopore recordings.
- Single-channel sensing and pore engineering.
- Quality control before event detection.
Common pitfalls
- Ignoring electrode drift and grounding artifacts.
- Failing to distinguish membrane rupture, pore insertion, and sample events.
- Reporting traces without acquisition settings.