AUTHOR=Garcia-Munoz Marianela , Taillefer Eddy , Pnini Reuven , Vickers Catherine , Miller Jonathan , Arbuthnott Gordon W. 

TITLE=Rebuilding a realistic corticostriatal “social network” from dissociated cells

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2015

YEAR=2015

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/systems-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2015.00063

DOI=10.3389/fnsys.2015.00063

ISSN=1662-5137

ABSTRACT=Many of the methods available for the study of cortical influences on striatal neurons
have serious problems. In vivo the connectivity is so sparse that the study of
individual cortical inputs to striatum is nearly impossible. Mixed corticostriatal
cultures develop many connections from striatal cells to cortical cells, in striking
contrast to the fact that only connections from cortical cells to striatal cells are present
in vivo. And interneuron populations are over-represented in organotypic cultures. For
these reasons, we have developed a method for growing cortical and striatal neurons
in separated compartments that allows cortical neurons to innervate striatal cells in
culture. The method works equally well for acutely dissociated or cryopreserved
neurons and allows a number of manipulations that are not otherwise possible. Either
cortical or striatal compartment can be transfected with channel rhodopsins. The
activity of both areas can be recorded in multielectrode arrays or individual patch
recordings from pairs of cells. Finally, corticostriatal connections can be severed
acutely. This procedure enables determination of the importance of corticostriatal
interaction in the resting pattern of activity. These cultures also facilitate development
of sensitive analytical network methods to track connectivity.