LTP Manual 1.13 August 5, 1998

 

 

 

 

LTP (Long-Term Potentiation) User's Guide

Version 1.13

 

 

 

by William W. Anderson, Ph.D.

 

Dept. of Anatomy
University of Bristol
Bristol BS8 1TD, England
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0117-928-7407
Fax: 0117-928-7405

 

Copyright � William W. Anderson, 1991-1998. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

Conditions for Using the 'LTP' Program

At the author and copyright owner's sole discretion, this 'LTP' software program is freely available to academic users and others working in non-commercial, non-profit making organisations. This version of the LTP program is also freely available to commercial users, although future versions of this LTP program may not be.

WARRANTY AND LIMITATIONS FOR USING THIS SOFTWARE:

  1. The author has sole copyright ownership of this software. The user is granted a liscense to freely use this software, but has no ownership of it.
  2. There is NO WARRANTY implied concerning the fitness of this software for the user's purpose and the software is supplied 'AS FOUND'.
  3. This is a piece of research software. As such it has been well tested in our research group for several years, and in our particular experiments is largely bug-free. All known bugs can be worked around. However, it is solely up to the user to determine if this software is suitable for his or her purpose, to understand its limitations and whether they are acceptable, and to test it and determine that it is operating properly. The author also expects that the researcher will be sufficiently 'with it' to notice if any obvious malfunction of the program occurs during use.
  4. Although the author will strenuously try to fix all bugs, he cannot promise when they will be fixed (or whether they will actually be fixed!, particularly if they occur intermittently on a remote site computer).
  5. Although the author welcomes ideas for new capabilities of the program, he can make no promises concerning their implementation. The user should understand that the needs of his research group determine which new capabilities will be added first.
  6. It is strictly forbidden to use this software on human subjects.

REQUIREMENTS FOR USING THIS SOFTWARE:

  1. PROGRAM LIMITATIONS. The user must read the Limitations of the LTP program as described in the Documentation and determine that they are acceptable for his or her purposes. This particularly concerns the timing accuracy of acquisition and stimulation (jitter).
  2. TESTING. The user must test this software in accordance with the installation instructions in the Manual. To do this properly requires using a triangular waveform generator and an oscilloscope.
  3. REGISTRATION. You must register this software with the author by either filling out a form during the website download, or by emailing me ([email protected]) your name, email address and laboratory address.
  4. REFERENCING. Research papers using the LTP program must include the following reference (W. W. Anderson and G. L. Collingridge, A Data Acquisition Program for On-line Analysis of Long-Term Potentiation and Long-Term Depression. Neurosci. Abst. 23:665, 1997) or an appropriate later reference.
  5. REPRINT. The user must also send to the author a reprint of any research paper that uses this software.
  6. BUG REPORTING. The user must report all program bugs to the author.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION
  1.1   LTP Program Capabilities
  1.2   Computer, Software and Data Acquisition Hardware Requirements
  1.3   Technical Support
  1.4   Acknowledgements
 
Chapter 2 - GETTING STARTED
  2.1   Upgrade notice
  2.2   Installing the Program
  2.3   Installing the Data Acquisition Board
  2.4   Starting the LTP Program
  2.5   Setting the AD Gain, Sample Interval, and Other Parameters
  2.6   Analog Filtering of the Signal Before Digitization
  2.7   Pressing a Function Key to Stimulate and Acquire Data
  2.8   Check that the Data Acquisition and Stimulation are Working Correctly
  2.9   Choosing the Printer
  2.10   Printing an AD Waveform Graph to the Printer
 
Chapter 3 - ORGANIZATION OF THE LTP PROGRAM
  3.1   Windows
  3.2   Screen Information Lines
  3.3   Graphs and Fields
  3.4   Menus and Dialog Boxes
  3.5   Running Protocols using Function Keys and Menus
  3.6   Yellow, Magenta and White Color Coding of Synaptic Waveform Detection
 
Chapter 4 - RUNNING THE LTP PROGRAM
  4.1   Automatic and Manual Loading of the Protocol (*.pro) File from Disk
  4.2   Choosing the Basic Protocol
  4.3   Setting the Data Acquisition Value
  4.4   Choosing Pulse/Train Stimulation Protocols and Setting Stimulation Values
  4.5   Choosing the Waveform Calculations To Do
  4.6   Setting the Calculation Detection Criteria
  4.7   AutoReset Timebase (AutoZoom)
  4.8   Setting Which Files to Saved
  4.9   Saving the Protocol (*.pro) File to Disk
  4.10   Run the Experiment
  4.11   Printing AMP Graphs, ADsweep Graphs and AMP Text Files After an Experiment
  4.12   Zipping and Saving Data Files at the End of an Experiment
  4.13   Working Around Program Bugs
  4.14   Recovering from a Crash
 
Chapter 5 - REANALYZING WAVEFORM DATA WITH THE LTP PROGRAM
  5.1   Source of Pulse Stimulation Information for Reanalysis
  5.2   Automatically Clear Current Reanalysis at Start of Next Reanalysis
  5.3   Digital Filtering
  5.4   Reanalysis
 
Chapter 6 - RUNNING THE LTP PROGRAM ON-LINE OVER THE NETWORK
  6.1   Plotting On-line to a Printer Attached to Another Networked Computer l
  6.2   Save Data Files On-line to Another Networked Computer
  6.3   Do On-line Acquisition and Analysis on Two Separate Networked Computers
 
APPENDICES
  APPENDIX A   LIMITATIONS TO LTP113E
  APPENDIX B   KNOWN BUGS IN LTP113E
  APPENDIX C   PICO TECHNOLOGY'S ADC-12 BOARD
  APPENDIX D   FUTURE LTP PROGRAM CAPABILITIES
  APPENDIX E   UPGRADING FROM LTP101M TO LTP113E

 

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