title: The automated counting of beating rates in individual cultured heart cells.
abstract: The effect of drugs on the beating rate of cultured heart cells can be monitored in a number of ways. The simultaneous automated measurement of beating rates of a number of cells allows drug effects to be rapidly quantified. A photoresistive detector placed on a television image of a cell, when coupled to operational amplifiers, gives binary signals that can be processed by a microprocessor. On this basis, we have devised a system that is capable of simultaneously monitoring the individual beating of six single cultured heart cells. A microprocessor automatically processes data obtained under different experimental conditions and records it in suitable descriptive formats such as dose-response curves and double reciprocal plots.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003201:Computers; D006321:Heart / Q000187:drug effects; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000187:drug effects*; D008838:Microcomputers; D009206:Myocardium / Q000166:cytology*; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051381:Rats