Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Prologue: the ion channel / Fumio Kukita and Shigetoshi Oiki -- 2. Patch-clamp techniques: general remarks / Tenpei Akita, Masahiro Ohara, and Yasunobu Okada -- 3. Whole-cell patch method / Hiromu Yawo -- 4. Perforated whole-cell patch clamp technique: a user's guide / Hitoshi Ishibashi, Andrew J. Moorhouse, and Junichi Nabekura -- 5. Methods for processing and analyzing single-channel data / Masahiro Sokabe -- 6. Channel noise / Harunori Ohmori -- 7. Slice patch clamp / Tadashi Isa, Keiji Imoto, and Yasuo Kawaguchi -- 8. Patch clamp recording method in slices for studying presynaptic mechanisms / Tomoyuki Takahashi, Tetsuya Hori, Yukihiro Nakamura, and Takayuki Yamashita -- 9. Analysis of synaptic plasticity with the slice patch-clamp recording technique / Toshiya Manabe -- 10. Patch-clamp recordings from neuronal dendrites / Hiroshi Tsubokawa and Hiroto Takahashi -- 11. In vivo blind patch-clamp recording technique / Hidemasa Furue -- 12. Two-photon targeted patch-clamp recordings in vivo / Kazuo Kitamura -- 13. Transporter current measurements / Mami Noda -- 14. Giant patch and macro patch / Satoshi Matsuoka and Ayako Takeuchi -- 15. Pipette perfusion technique / Minoru Horie -- 16. Planar lipid bilayer method for studying channel molecules / Shigetoshi Oiki -- 17. Patch-clamp capacitance measurements / Takeshi Sakaba, Akihiro Hazma, and Yoshio Maruyama -- 18. Brief guide to patch-clamp current measurements in organelle membranes / Yoshio Maruyama and Akihiro Hazama -- 19. Role of ion channels in plants / Rainer Hedrich, Dirk Becker, Dietmar Geiger, Irene Marten, and M. Rob G. Roelfsema -- 20. Automated patch clamping / Kohei Sawada and Takashi Yoshinaga -- 21. Patch-clamp biosensor method / Seiji Hayashi and Makoto Tominaga -- 22. Temperature-evoked channel activation: simultaneous detection on ionic currents and temperature / Makoto Tominaga and Kunitoshi Uchida -- 23. Heterologus expression systems and analyses of ion channels / Kazuharu Furutani and Yoshihisa Kurachi -- 24. Patch-clamp and single-cell reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction/microarray analysis / Akihiro Yamanaka -- 25. Smart-patch technique / Ravshan Z. Sabirov, Yuri E. Korchev, and Yasunobu Okada -- 26. Ion channel pore sizing in patch-clamp experiments / Ravshan Z. Sabirov and Yasunobu Okada -- 27. Digital recording of patch-clamp data / Shigeru Morishima and Andrew F. James -- 28. Solutions for patch-clamp experiments / Ravshan Z. Sabirov and Shigeru Morishima.