102
•
Reference Section
MultiClamp 700A Theory and Operation, Copyright 2000, 2001 Axon Instruments, Inc.
Leak Subtraction
•
Leak Subtraction provides a quick method of subtracting linear leak currents from
the Membrane Current in V-Clamp mode.
•
Leak Subtraction is activated by checking the Checkbox and pressing the
button in the Leak Subtraction box in the V-Clamp pane.
•
See also Capacitance Compensation.
Leak Subtraction is typically used when you are trying to measure single-channel
currents that are sitting on top of a relatively large leak current. Imagine, for example,
a channel that opens during a 100 mV voltage step that is applied to a patch with a
1 G
Ω
seal resistance. The seal (leak) current during the step will be 100 pA. Because
of this relatively large leak current, the gain of the MultiClamp 700A cannot be turned
up very far without saturating the amplifier, but at a low gain setting the single-channel
openings may not be resolved very well.
Leak Subtraction solves this problem by subtracting from the membrane current, in this
case, a 100 pA step of current before the Output Gain is applied. The Scaled Output
signal will now be a flat line on which the single-channel activity is superimposed.
(This assumes that the capacitance transients at the start and end of the step have
already been canceled using Capacitance Compensation. Indeed, Leak Subtraction can
be thought of as a kind of capacitance compensation that applies to leak currents.)
Leak Subtraction works by scaling the command potential waveform (
V
c
(t)
) by the seal
resistance (
R
seal
) to obtain a time-varying estimate of the leak current (
I
leak
(t)
), which is
then subtracted from the membrane current. It differs from Output Zero, which simply
subtracts a constant offset without regard to changes in the command potential with
time. In order to perform its correction, Leak Subtraction must be provided with an
estimate of
R
seal
. This is done by pressing the Auto Leak Subtraction button, or by
manually entering an estimate of
R
seal
to the right of the button. When it is correctly
adjusted, voltage steps that are known to elicit no active currents (
e.g.
small
hyperpolarizing steps) will produce a flat line in the Membrane Current signal
(ignoring the brief capacitance transients, if these are still uncompensated).