The spontaneous depolarization and repolarization events that occurs in a repetitive and stable manner within the cardiac muscle is often abnormal or lost in cases of cardiac dysfunction or cardiac failure. The underlaying mechanisms of this rhythmicity are based on the myriad of voltage dependent ion channels found in cardiac myocytes. These ion channels can then be studied at the single channel, single cell or tissue level using various techniques and equipment supplied by ALA Scientific Instruments.

The use of the patch clamp technique is very powerful at the single channel and single cell (whole cell) level. Such amplifiers as the manufactured by HEKA and NPI are ideal. In addition, ALA Scientific Instruments range of perfusion systems make cardiac experiments very easy. At the tissue level, MCS multielectrode arrays are capable of recording from distinct regions of cardiac slices simultaneously.

In vitro cell and tissue preparations

Equipment:

• MCS MEA60-BC system
• ALA VC³-4
• ALA VWK

In vivo multielectrode recording

Equipment:

• MCS ME-32-System
• MCS FlexArray