Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of microchannel geometry on neuronal cultures and to maintain these cultures for long period of time (over several weeks) inside the closed microchannels of cellular scale dimensions.
Methods: The primary hippocampal neurons from E-18 rat were cultured inside the closed polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels of varying sizes. The effect of the channel geometry on the spatial and the temporal variations in the neural microenvironment was investigated by studying neural maturation and variation in the media osmolality respectively. The cultures were maintained for longer time spans by PDMS device pretreatment, control on media evaporation (by using hydrophobic ethylene propylene membrane) and an effective culture maintenance protocol. Further, the devices were integrated with the planar microelectrode arrays (MEA) to record spontaneous electrical activity.
Results: A direct influence of channel geometry on neuron maturation was observed with cells in smaller channels maturing faster. The temporal variation in the microenvironment was caused by several fold increase in osmolality within 2-3 days due to rapid media evaporation. With our culture methodology, neurons were maintained in the closed channels as small as 50 microns in height and width for over 1 month in serum free media condition and the time varying spontaneous electrical activity was measured for up to 5 weeks using the MEA.
Conclusions: The understanding of the effect of the culture scale on cellular microenvironment and such long-term culture maintenance will be helpful in studying neuronal tissue development; therapeutic drug screening; and for network level neuronal analysis.
Novel Kuramoto model with inhibition dynamics modeling scale-free avalanches and synchronization in neuronal cultures
University of Campania ”Luigi Vanvitelli”（坎帕尼亚路易吉·范维特利大学）；University of Genova（热那亚大学）；Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)（意大利理工大学）；RCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino（圣马蒂诺大学临床医院）；National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN)（意大利国家核物理研究所）
Maximum entropy models of neuronal populations at and off criticality
University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”（坎帕尼亚路易吉范维特利大学）；Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova（帕多瓦大学生物医学系）；Section on Critical Brain Dynamics, National Institute of Mental Health（国家心理健康研究所关键脑动力学组）；Universidade Federal do Ceará（塞阿拉联邦大学）
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London（伦敦大学学院神经学研究所惠康神经影像中心）；VERSES AI Research Lab（VERSES人工智能研究实验室）；RIKEN Center for Brain Science（理化学研究所脑科学中心）；Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford（牛津大学纳菲尔德临床神经科学系）；IITB-Monash Research Academy（印度理工学院孟买分校-莫纳什大学研究学院）；Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University（莫纳什大学生物医学影像中心）；Cortical Labs（皮质实验室）
