Patch-Clamp Lab — Single Channel Recording

Single channel trace

One channel, one sweep. Watch it flicker open after the voltage step, then fall silent as it inactivates.

Stateclosed

Openings–

First latency–

Po (during pulse)–

Closed cursor (I)–

Open cursor (I)–

ΔI = I(open) − I(closed)–

Drag the two dashed cursor lines onto the trace — Closed onto the baseline, Open onto an open level — then press Record point to log the test voltage and the measured current step (ΔI) below.

Recorded measurements

#	Test V (mV)	ΔI (pA)

I–V plot

Multiple sweeps

The same channel, repeated trials at the same test potential — trial-to-trial variability in latency, opening count and duration. Right-click any trace to drop a marker and log its (voltage, current) into the table.

Number of sweeps

Per-sweep summary

Sweep	First latency (ms)	# openings	Total open time (ms)	Po

Picked points

#	Sweep	Time (ms)	Voltage (mV)	I (pA)

I–V plot

Ensemble average

Average many independent channels (or repeated sweeps) and the noisy single-channel flickers become the smooth macroscopic current students recognize from whole-cell recordings. Right-click the bold average trace to log its (voltage, current) into the table.

Channels / sweeps (N)

Thin traces show a sample of 12 individual sweeps; the bold line is the average across all N — this is i × N × Po(t), the same quantity the whole-cell macroscopic current represents.

Picked points

#	Time (ms)	Voltage (mV)	I (pA)

Macroscopic-like I–V plot

Dwell-time histograms

Runs 200 pulses one at a time, like watching an oscilloscope sweep — most informative for the Kᵥ channel, whose non-inactivating flicker gives many open/closed events per pulse. Every 5th pulse, the closed- and open-time histograms below update with all events collected so far (first latency and any dwell still in progress at pulse end are excluded, to avoid bias).

Holding potential (mV)

Test potential (mV)

Pulse duration (ms)

Number of pulses

Baseline before step (ms)

Tail after step (ms)

These fields lock once a run starts (including while paused) so the accumulated histogram always reflects one consistent protocol — press Reset to change them.

Pulse 0 / 200

Closed times

n=0

Components:

Open times

n=0

Components: