Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience (Apr 2015)
A ‘Facebook’ for neurons: rebuilding a realistic corticostriatal ‘social network’ from dissociated cells.
Abstract
Many of the methods available for the study of cortical influences on striatal neuronshave serious problems. In vivo the connectivity is so sparse that the study ofindividual cortical inputs to striatum is nearly impossible. Mixed corticostriatalcultures develop many connections from striatal cells to cortical cells, in strikingcontrast to the fact that only connections from cortical cells to striatal cells are presentin vivo. And interneuron populations are over-represented in organotypic cultures. Forthese reasons, we have developed a method for growing cortical and striatal neuronsin separated compartments that allows cortical neurons to innervate striatal cells inculture. The method works equally well for acutely dissociated or cryopreservedneurons and allows a number of manipulations that are not otherwise possible. Eithercortical or striatal compartment can be transfected with channel rhodopsins. Theactivity of both areas can be recorded in multielectrode arrays or individual patchrecordings from pairs of cells. Finally, corticostriatal connections can be severedacutely. This procedure enables determination of the importance of corticostriatalinteraction in the resting pattern of activity. These cultures also facilitate developmentof sensitive analytical network methods to track connectivity.
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