Development of a microcomputer-based system to monitor the electrical and chemical responses of nerve fiber.

The objective of this project is to develop a microcomputer-based system to monitor the electrical and chemical responses of nerve fiber individually and in combination. The system is capable of controlling eight nerve fiber samples simultaneously, and allows the researcher to: (i) study the effects of different stimulus amplitudes, and duration, (ii) provide real-time data processing, and (ii) store the collected data and display result in a tabular form and/or graphically. The system consists of two subsystems, the microcomputer and the analog subsystem. The microcomputer is a 80486-based microcomputer system. The analog subsystem consists of Instrumentation Amplifiers, Analog Multiplexer, Analog-to-Digital Converter, Digital-to-Analog Converter, and Sample-and-Hold with multiplexed input. In addition to the hardware, the software is being developed which consists of a main program and many other routines.