Sucrose Gap - History

History

The sucrose gap technique was first introduced by Robert Stämpfli in 1954 who worked with Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley between 1947 and 1949. From his research, Stämpfli determined that currents moving along nerve fibers can be measured more easily when there is a gap of high resistance that reduces the amount of conducting medium outside of the cell. Stämpfli observed many problems with the ways that were being used to measure membrane potential at the time. He experimented with a new method that he called the sucrose gap. The method was used to study action potentials in nerve fibers.

Huxley observed Stämpfli’s method and agreed that it was useful and produced very few errors. The sucrose gap technique also contributed to Stämpfli's and Huxley's discovery of inhibitory junction potentials. Since its introduction, many improvements and alterations have been made to the technique. One modification of the single sucrose gap method was introduced by C.H.V. Hoyle in 1987. The double sucrose gap technique, which was first used by Rougier, Vassort, and Stämpfli to study cardiac cells in 1968, was improved by C. Leoty and J. Alix who introduced an improved chamber for the double sucrose gap with voltage clamp technique which eliminated external resistance from the node.