Edited by the 1991 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, this Second Edition includes new chapters covering such applications as capacitance measurements; single-cell PCR measurements; whole-cell recording from brain slices in combination with imaging techniques; atomic force microscopy of cells and membranes attached to glass pipettes; and patch clamping.

Edited by the 1991 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, this Second Edition includes new chapters covering such applications as capacitance measurements; single-cell PCR measurements; whole-cell recording from brain slices in combination with imaging techniques; atomic force microscopy of cells and membranes attached to glass pipettes; and patch clamping.

Single-channel recording has become a widely used tool for the study of ion permeation mechanisms in biological membranes. Whereas the technique might have been considered an "art" after its introduction in 1976, it developed into a relatively simple method after it became possible to obtain high-resistance (several gigaohm) membrane-pipette seals. In the summer of 1982, a course on the technique was held at the Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily. It brought together people from most of the laboratories involved in patch clamping at that time. During the course, it became apparent that the technique had reached a state of maturity. Repeatedly, the opinion was expressed that a detailed description of all the aspects of the technique including representative examples of results should be available. We therefore asked the course instructors, as well as several other colleagues, to provide chapters on selected topics in order to produce this volume. The different variants of patch clamping were described quite extensively in an article by Hamill, Marty, Neher, Sakmann, and Sigworth (Pflugers Archiv 391:85) in 1981. Rather than repeating this survey in an introductory chapter, we chose to reprint that article in the Appendix of this volume (by permission of Springer-Verlag). The methods section will, therefore, go straight into detailed aspects of the technol ogy."

Die Patch-Clamp-Technik ist heute eine der wichtigsten neurophysiologischen Arbeitsmethoden. Ihre Anwendung hat in der biomedizinischen Grundlagenforschung bedeutende Erkenntnisse uber die Funktion und die Eigenschaften von Ionenkanalen erbracht, und auch aus der angewandten pharmakologischen Forschung ist sie in zwischen nicht mehr wegzudenken. Klar und praxisbezogen vermitteln die Autoren die wesentlichen Informationen, um die Methode im Labor einzufuhren und erfolgreich anzuwenden. Das Buch erlautert die theoretischen Grundlagen der Messung, den detaillierten Aufbau eines Messplatzes und die praktische Durchfuhrung typischer Messkonfigurationen. Konkrete Tipps und Tricks helfen beim "Trouble-Shooting" und sind nicht nur fur Neuanwender eine unverzichtbare Hilfe.