title: StimDuino: an Arduino-based electrophysiological stimulus isolator.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Electrical stimulus isolator is a widely used device in electrophysiology. The timing of the stimulus application is usually automated and controlled by the external device or acquisition software; however, the intensity of the stimulus is adjusted manually. Inaccuracy, lack of reproducibility and no automation of the experimental protocol are disadvantages of the manual adjustment. To overcome these shortcomings, we developed StimDuino, an inexpensive Arduino-controlled stimulus isolator allowing highly accurate, reproducible automated setting of the stimulation current.
  
  
  METHODS
  The intensity of the stimulation current delivered by StimDuino is controlled by Arduino, an open-source microcontroller development platform. The automatic stimulation patterns are software-controlled and the parameters are set from Matlab-coded simple, intuitive and user-friendly graphical user interface. The software also allows remote control of the device over the network.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Electrical current measurements showed that StimDuino produces the requested current output with high accuracy. In both hippocampal slice and in vivo recordings, the fEPSP measurements obtained with StimDuino and the commercial stimulus isolators showed high correlation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Commercial stimulus isolators are manually managed, while StimDuino generates automatic stimulation patterns with increasing current intensity. The pattern is utilized for the input-output relationship analysis, necessary for assessment of excitability. In contrast to StimuDuino, not all commercial devices are capable for remote control of the parameters and stimulation process.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  StimDuino-generated automation of the input-output relationship assessment eliminates need for the current intensity manually adjusting, improves stimulation reproducibility, accuracy and allows on-site and remote control of the stimulation parameters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sheinin
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel.
authors.forename: Ayal
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lavi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel. Electronic address: izhakm@post.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Izhak
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Michaelevski
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D000818:Animals; D057205:Automation, Laboratory / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D002138:Calibration; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004594:Electrophysiology / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008839:Microelectrodes; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D046509:Tissue Culture Techniques; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Arduino; Brain slice; Electrical stimulation; Electrophysiology; In vivo