LabPatch, an acquisition and analysis program for patch-clamp electrophysiology

An acquisitionand analysis program, "LabPatch," has been developed for use inpatch-clamp research. LabPatch controls any patch-clamp amplifier,acquires and records data, runs voltage protocols, plots and analyzesdata, and connects to spreadsheet and database programs. Controlswithin LabPatch are grouped by function on one screen, much like anoscilloscope front panel. The software is mouse driven, so that theuser need only point and click. Finally, the ability to copy data toother programs running in Windows 95/98, and the ability to keep trackof experiments using a database, make LabPatch extremely versatile. Thesystem requirements include Windows 95/98, at least a 100-MHz processor and 16 MB RAM, a data acquisition card, digital-to-analogconverter, and a patch-clamp amplifier. LabPatch is available free ofcharge at http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/huizinga/.