Electrophysiology is the study the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It includes measurements of voltage changes, electric current or similar manipulations.

Electrophysiology can be applied to a large range of scales from single cell to whole organs like the heart. It is usually used to study electrical properties of living organisms, excised tissue, dissociated cells, artificially grown cells or tissue.

During an electrophysiological assay, the flow of ions (or ion current) is measured by electrical recording techniques involving electrodes. Electrodes can be simple solid conductors like discs or needles, printed circuit boards or hollow tubes filled with an electrolyte. With very small electrodes (micrometres), an electrophysiologist can even study the intracellular electrical activity of a single cell. However, this technique reduces the lifetime of the cell and causes the leak of cell substances across the membrane.

Electrophysiological assays are applied for medical research, diagnosis and monitoring.

In cardiology , particularly, electrophysiology is applied to study arrhythmia: for the assessment of the risk of development, for the estimation of the symptoms, or for the design of treatments. In academic and pharmaceutical studies, cardiomyocytes are often used as models for electrophysiology.

Electrophysiological assays are particularly applied in neuroscience to measure the electrical activity of neurons and especially their action potential activity. For example, they are used to investigate neurodegenerative diseases or to develop aural and visual prostheses.

For academic research as well as for industrial research, it often takes time to find the CRO which corresponds to your electrophysiology needs. Here you can find a selection of services which can be useful for you.