The Effect of Incision

Depth for Measuring

Membrane Potential
By: Hayley Jackson, Caitlyn Warne, Megan Jenkinson
Introduction
❏ What was the experiment?
❏ What were the independent and dependent variables?
❏ Why did we conduct this experiment?
❏ What are the potential benefits?
❏ What is the background research?

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Methods
❏ Two virile crayfish were used to compare membrane
potential values of superficial and deep muscle fibers.
❏ They both were cut through the abdomen using large
scissors and submerged into a 5.4 potassium normal
crayfish saline solution the entire time.
❏ A deep incision was made into crayfish #1 & a shallow
incision into crayfish #2; scalpel #11 blade, forceps, and
vannas scissors were used.
❏ A micromanipulator was attached to an intracellular
microelectrode head stage and held an electrode filled with
3M KCI solution.

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 Methods
❏ The electrode was first placed into the saline solution (not muscle)
❏ A silver pellet ground was placed in the solution that was connected to an intracellular
amplifier which displayed the membrane potential values.
❏ In some instances it was not at 0.00, so we turn the DC offset knob to zero out the
membrane potential value.
❏ When time to record we recorded values from both types every five minutes the first 45
minute segment, and then every 15 minutes for the second 45 minute segment.

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 Methods
❏ Data collection was inputted into an excel spreadsheet
❏ IBM SPSS Statistics 27 software was used to generate:
❏ Independent samples t-tests ran at each time point to directly compare the measured potential of the
superficial muscle fibers to the deep muscle fibers.
❏ A correlation test was run to determine the impact of time on membrane potential values collected
from each muscle fiber type.

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 Results

Pearson correlational analyses for the

relationship between time and resting
potential in superficial and deep
muscles both yielded statistically
insignificant results.

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Results

An independent sample t-test was performed to compare the average resting membrane potential of
superficial and deep muscle fibers. This test also yielded statistically insignificant results.

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Results

Average resting
membrane potential was
recorded over a period of
90 minutes in both
superficial and deep
muscle fibers. An
independent samples
t-test was performed and
yielded statistically
insignificant results.

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Discussion
❏ Refresher: what was the point of the experiment?
❏ What did we find? What do the results mean?

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Discussion
❏ Why should we care?
❏ What were the limitations?
❏ What does this mean for the future of neuroscience?

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