ArtMem v. 1.2

Description: One in a series of three graphical interactive teaching programs that simulate experiments using microelectrodes and electrodes to teaching some fundamental concepts of electrophysiology. ArtMem, originally released in 1993, is an interactive graphical program, has been designed to be used as a laboratory exercise to teach students about the generation and measurement of membrane potentials. It actually starts off with a thought experiment in which students can control the opening of individual K+ and Cl- channels depicted across a bilayer membrane, separating two different KCl solutions, and see how the potential across that membrane responds to such channel openings. The major part of the program emulates all the features of an actual practical class exercise that the department has been using for many years to directly measure membrane potentials across a cation- or anion-selective artificial membrane as a function of KCl gradient and enable students to determine the relative permeability of the membrane to K+ and Cl-.

More information is available on the website of the University of New South Wales and on Professor Barry's webpage.

Comments & References: The other two computer programs in this series are MemCable and MemPot. The programs have been primarily written for Windows, but they also run on Macintosh computers using emulation software. For further details, prices, distributors and orders, please contact Professor Barry.