Extracellular Axon Stimulation

Abstract

This is a detailed protocol explaining how to perform extracellular axon stimulations as described in Städele and Stein, 2016. The ability to stimulate and record action potentials is essential to electrophysiological examinations of neuronal function. Extracellular stimulation of axons traveling in fiber bundles (nerves) is a classical technique in brain research and a fundamental tool in neurophysiology (Abbas and Miller, 2004; Barry, 2015; Basser and Roth, 2000; Cogan, 2008). It allows for activating action potentials in individual or multiple axons, controlling their firing frequency, provides information about the speed of neuronal communication, and neuron health and function.

Keywords: Action potentials; Anode; Artifact; Cathode; Electrophysiology; Neuron; Threshold.