ECE 492 – BIOINSTRUMENTATION

TEST 1

Name ___________________________

From CD Quiz Page 3: At Club Impulse, Gatekeeper 1 only opens the gate when the voltage is
right. Na is not cool enough to get in. What channel does Gatekeeper 1 control, dude? ANS:
Voltage-gated Potassium Channel.

From CD Quiz Page 4: Gatekeeper 2 has “bad chemistry” with all ions except Cl (which he will
let pass). Which channel does he control? ANS: Chemically-gated GABA channel.

From CD Quiz Page 6:

Extra Credit: Although Japanese puffer fish is a delicacy, tetrodotoxin from Japanese puffer fish
gonads, if not removed, will (check all the items that apply):

1. Change the resting potential (no)

2. Prevent synaptic potentials from occurring (no)
3. Prevent APs from occurring
4. Not affect axon hillocks (no)
5. Cause uncontrollable diaphragmatic spasms, spastic breathing and death (no)
6. Make blood vessel smooth muscles relax causing death.

From CD Quiz Page 3: The electrical force across a cell membrane that results from the
speparation of charge across that membrane is the ____________________________(Electrical
potential, a.k.a. membrane potential)

The difference in the concentration of a particular substance between two adjacent areas which
provides the chemical force that causes ions to move is the
_____________________________________________(Concentration gradient)

The combined electrical and chemical forces on an ion that determines the net movement of that
ion is the ______________________________(Electrochemical gradient)

1. In amplifying an ECG signal, the signal may be undesirably attenuated by the resistance of the
amplifier. By flexibly adjusting the mathematical relation between Rs and Ri, you as a
biomedical engineer can obtain any percentage of the input voltage that you like. How would
you get more gain from the signal, given that Rs = 100kΩ and Ri = 1MΩ.

a. Increase Rs
b. Decrease Rs
 c. Increase Ri
d. Decrease Ri

2. You already know that the Nernst Equation allows you calculate the magnitude and sign of
a cell’s membrane voltage when you know the concentrations of intracellular and
extracellular potassium. This equation actually only works when a resting membrane is
effectively a potassium-permeable membrane. The Goldman Equation lets you calculate the
transmembrane resting potential when the membrane is permeable to the other major ion
species, sodium and chlorine. The Goldman Equation is expressed as,

RT  PK K o  PNa Nao  PCl Cl i 

Vm  ln  
nF  PK K i  PNa Nai  PCl Cl o 

where PM is the permeability coefficient of the membrane for a particular ionic species, M. At
room temperature, the gas constant, temperature, sign, Faraday’s constant and natural log
conversion to base 10 for this equation, yield the coefficient 0.0581 (i.e., 0.581log10{∙}).

For frog skeletal muscle, typical values for the intracellular and extracellular concentrations of
the major ion species (in millimoles per liter) are as follows:

SPECIES INTRACELLULAR EXTRACELLULAR

Na+ 10 120
K+ 170 5
Cl- 5 155

Typical values of the permeability coefficients for frog skeletal muscle are PNa = 2 x 10-6 cm/s,
PK = 2 x 10-6 cm/s and PCl = 4 x 10-6 cm/s. Calculate the resting potential, Vm, for this
membrane using the Goldman Equation.

3. A biosignal has frequency components between 250 and 6000 Hz, with a range of 25 to
100 mV. Your DSP has a sensitivity of plus or minus 10 μV while taking 725,000 samples
per minute.

a) Explain quantitatively why you will or will not be able to process the signal correctly.

b) If you will be able to process the signal correctly, what minimum bit size will you need for
your ADC before storing the signal for analysis later? If you won’t be able to process the signal,
write, “Can’t process the signal”.

4. For a differential amplifier with R1, R2 and R3 equal to 8kΩ, 32kΩ and 40kΩ, respectively.
Calculate its common-mode rejection ratio (Use the topology and labeling studied in class.
But, if you don’t remember it, use whatever circuit topology/labeling you know).