Multichannel Systems MEA1060-Up-BC Manual - Manual (Page 39)

Troubleshooting
39
Behavior of stimulation electrodes
Due to the high electric charge that is applied by the stimulus and the general slow kinetics of
electrode discharge, the recording from stimulation electrodes is usually not possible shortly
after stimulation. You might also observe a minor crosstalk on the two channels that have
neighbor tracks to the stimulation electrodes on the MEA. This is considered a normal behavior
of the amplifier.
The switch artifacts of the internal switches between stimulus input and stimulation electrode
of the MEA1060-BC-PA also contribute to the artifacts on the stimulation channels. The switch
artifacts are generally not important for the performance of the stimulus artifact suppression,
because the charge applied by the stimulus is much higher, but the information in this paragraph
might be useful for you as a background information. The switches generate artifacts that are
low but still higher than the noise level. As the MEA type and the bath affect the kinetics of
the electrode discharge following the switch artifact, the amplitude and duration of the switch
artifact depend on the experimental set up. The switch between stimulus input and stimulation
electrode is moved only when the TTL blanking pulse is connected and active, and only on
stimulation channels (selected in MEA_Select). Therefore, you will see a switch artifact on
the stimulation channels during the TTL pulse even if you do not send a stimulus pulse to
the stimulation electrodes at all.
5.7 Examples with Different MEA Types
In the following, you will find typical examples for stimulus artifact suppression with standard
MEA and electrode types under standard experimental conditions: Monopolar voltage driven
stimulation, 1 V (monophasic), 100 μs duration at a 24 ms interval, Wait 0, MEA filled with PBS,
silver pellet or internal reference electrode as bath electrode. Under these conditions, the stimulus
artifact suppression performance showed no difference whether the internal reference electrode
or a silver pellet was used (except for 60EcoMEAs, where the performance was sometimes much
better with the silver pellet). The data acquisition was performed with MC_Rack,
at a sampling rate of 25 kHz.
These examples are intended to give you an impression of the results that you can expect with the
MEA1060-BC amplifier, but please note that the results may vary depending on your experimental
settings (please see also the recommendations under "Stimulus Artifact Suppression (Blanking)").
Please see also the step-by-step tutorial on Stimulation and Recording under First Tests and
Tutorial.
(Used) 60MEA200/30iR-Ti