The McGill Physiology Virtual Lab

Compound Action Potential

  In this experiment, you will stimulate the frog's sciatic nerve, activating a large number of individual nerve fibres simultaneously, and record the resulting aggregate electrical activity, i.e., the Compound Action Potential (CAP).

The particular objectives are to:

  • Study the characteristics of the frog's sciatic nerve CAP.
  • Construct a strength/duration curve of the nerve.
  • Measure the conduction velocities of A-alpha and A-beta fibres by two different methods.
  • Study the refractory period of A-fibres
 

Click here to continue with background information on nerve anatomy