Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Development Of A Bi-Directional Electronics Platform For Advanced Neural Applications, Luca Abbati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a high-voltage, high-precision bi-directional multi-channel system capable of stimulating neural activity through bi-phasic pulses of amplitude up to ∓50 V while recording very low-voltage responses as low as tens of microvolts. Most of the systems reported from the scientific community possess at least one of the following common limitations: low stimulation voltages, low gain capabilities, or insufficient bandwidth to acquire a wide range of different neural activities.

While systems can be found that present remarkable capabilities in one or more specific areas, a versatile system that performs over all these aspects is missing. Moreover, as many novel …

Aberrant Sialylation Alters Cardiac Electrical Signaling, Andrew Ednie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the heart, electrical signaling is responsible for its rhythmicity and is necessary to initiate muscle contraction. The net electrical activity in a cardiac myocyte during a contraction cycle is observed as the action potential (AP), which describes a change in membrane potential as a function of time. In ventricular cardiac myocytes, voltage-gated sodium channels (Nav) and voltage-gated potassium channels (Kv) play antagonistic roles in shaping the AP with the former initiating membrane depolarization and the latter repolarizing it. Functional changes in the primary cardiac Nav isoform, Nav 1.5, or any one of the many Kv isoforms expressed in the …