The relationship between neuron activity and cortical steady potentials.

Microtubules (MTs) are important cytoskeletal structures engaged in a number of specific cellular activities, including vesicular traffic, cell cyto-architecture and motility, cell division, and information processing within neuronal processes. MTs have also been implicated in higher neuronal functions, including memory and the emergence of "consciousness". How MTs handle and process electrical information, however, is heretofore unknown. Here we show new electrodynamic properties of MTs. Isolated, taxol-stabilized MTs behave as biomolecular transistors capable of amplifying electrical information. Electrical amplification by MTs can lead to the enhancement of dynamic information, and processivity in neurons can be conceptualized as an "ionic-based" transistor, which may affect, among other known functions, neuronal computational capabilities.

Amplifiers, Electronic↗

PubMed2006

Numerical study of wavelength-swept semiconductor ring lasers: the role of refractive-index nonlinearities in semiconductor optical amplifiers and implications for biomedical imaging applications.

Recent results have demonstrated unprecedented wavelength-tuning speed and repetition rate performance of semiconductor ring lasers incorporating scanning filters. However, several unique operational characteristics of these lasers have not been adequately explained, and the lack of an accurate model has hindered optimization. We numerically investigated the characteristics of these sources, using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) traveling-wave Langevin model, and found good agreement with experimental measurements. In particular, we explored the role of the SOA refractive-index nonlinearities in determining the intracavity frequency-shift-broadening and the emitted power dependence on scan speed and direction. Our model predicts both continuous-wave and pulse operation and shows a universal relationship between the output power of lasers that have different cavity lengths and the filter peak frequency shift per round trip, therefore revealing the advantage of short cavities for high-speed biomedical imaging.

Amplifiers, Electronic↗

PubMed2006

Influence of recording instrumentation on the stimulus artifact tail in the surface acquisition of somatosensory evoked potentials.

Surface recorded somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) are neural signals elicited by an external stimulus. In the case of electrically induced SEPs, the artifact generated by the stimulation process can severely distort the signal. The artifact is characterized by a large impulse followed by a slowly decaying tail. In some cases, the artifact tail often lasts well into the initiation of the SEP making the determination of absolute latency very difficult. While the literature often states that the recording instrumentation plays a part in the generation of this artifact tail, no firm evidence has ever been presented. In this work, comparisons are made between three instrumentation systems (BJT, JFET and CMOS) with differing input impedances in an attempt to quantify the effects on the artifact tail. The conclusions from this investigation show that there is no significant interaction between the input impedance of the recording instrumentation and the duration of the artifact tail. Each amplifier type produced results with no significant statistical differences. It was also found that while stimulation amplitude has a weak effect on the artifact tail, the greatest contribution to variation has an inter-subject origin. Consequently, it is concluded that the time constant of the artifact tail must originate from other sources that are subject dependent.

Amplifiers, Electronic↗