Response of networks of neurons cultured in vitro to simple modifications of the medium ionic content

The purpose of this work is to utilize the recently available electrophysiological technique growing selected populations of neurons on planar substrate microelectrode arrays to study the collective electrophysiological behavior of neuronal networks. Experiments dealing with the characterization of network activity and the identification of the synaptic connectivity of networks of cultured neurons, extracted from dorsal root ganglia and spinal cords of chick embryos and exposed to synapse inhibiting/reinforcing ions, are described. As a result, correlations between various regimens of neuronal activity and synaptic strength are obtained