Microcontrollers as inexpensive pulse generators and parallel processors in electrophysiological experiments

Although microcontrollers are now found in a rapidly expanding range of applications, they have not yet been employed in electrophysiological experiments. As many experiments are currently using a PC, the additional costs for the microcontroller, some simple electronics and the necessary software are about an order of magnitude less than the costs for a second computer with the appropriate interface and software. In this article, a microcontroller-based pulse generator is described which has several advantages over most other types of pulse generators.