ArticleJournal of neurophysiology2009
Membrane capacitance measurements revisited: dependence of capacitance value on measurement method in nonisopotential neurons.
Article in Journal of neurophysiology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers.
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Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Electrophysiological profiling of exocytosis during early-stage development of the zebrafish lateral line.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Circadian Regulation of Neuronal Membrane Capacitance-Mechanisms and Implications for Neural Computation and Behavior.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Constructing artificial neurons with functional parameters comprehensively matching biological values.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Plasticity in thoracic paravertebral sympathetic postganglionic neurons after high spinal cord transection.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
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- Cell Membrane Capacitance (Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
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- Tsc1 deletion in Purkinje neurons disrupts the axon initial segment, impairing excitability and cerebellar function.Neurobiology of disease · 2025Article
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- Spike reliability is cell type specific and shapes excitation and inhibition in the cortex.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Muscarinic acetylcholine receptor activated effectors in principal neurons of the rat basolateral amygdala.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2025Article
- Synaptic Targets and Cellular Sources of CB1 Cannabinoid Receptor and Vesicular Glutamate Transporter-3 Expressing Nerve Terminals in Relation to GABAergic Neurons in the Human Cerebral Cortex.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Daily oscillations of neuronal membrane capacitance.Cell reports · 2024Article
- Spike Reliability is Cell-Type Specific and Shapes Excitation and Inhibition in the Cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Functional Analysis of NMDAR Subunit Components in Postsynaptic Currents of Identified Cells and Synapses in Brain Slices.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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7 authors.
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Abstract
During growth or degeneration neuronal surface area can change dramatically. Measurements of membrane protein concentration, as in ion channel or ionic conductance density, are often normalized by membrane capacitance, which is proportional to the surface area, to express changes independently from cell surface variations. Several electrophysiological protocols are used to measure cell capacitance, all based on the assumption of membrane isopotentiality. Yet, most neurons violate this assumption because of their complex anatomical structure, raising the question of which protocol yields measurements that are closest to the actual total membrane capacitance. We measured the capacitance of identified neurons from crab stomatogastric ganglia using three different protocols: the current-clamp step, the voltage-clamp step, and the voltage-clamp ramp protocols. We observed that the current-clamp protocol produced significantly higher capacitance values than those of either voltage-clamp protocol. Computational models of various anatomical complexities suggest that the current-clamp protocol can yield accurate capacitance estimates. In contrast, the voltage-clamp protocol estimates rapidly deteriorate as isopotentiality is reduced. We provide a mathematical description of these results by analyzing a simple two-compartment model neuron to facilitate an intuitive understanding of these methods. Together, the experiments, modeling, and mathematical analysis indicate that accurate total membrane capacitance measurements cannot be obtained with voltage-clamp protocols in nonisopotential neurons. Furthermore, although current-clamp steps can theoretically yield accurate measurements, experimentalists should be aware of limitations imposed by step duration and numerical errors during fitting procedures to obtain the membrane time constant.
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