Philine Wangemann Lab
Calcium Sparks and Waves
Calcium sparks and waves are measured in the spiral modiolar artery of the gerbil. The spiral modiolar artery is an arteriole with an outer diameter of ~60 µm that supplies the cochlea of the inner ear. Calcium waves are slow events with times of half-decay of ~5 s and sparks are fast events with times of half-decay of ~20 ms.
Confocal imaging and line-scanning is used to measure the cytosolic Ca2+ concentration with enhanced image or time resolution (510 META, Carl Zeiss).
Movies from the lab:
Vasoconstriction
Sparks and waves
Sparks
Papers from the lab:
Scherer et al (2001)
Scherer et al (2002)
Herzog et al (2002)