Responses of cultured neuronal network to different electrical stimuli patterns

摘要

Learning a new behavioral task is an exploration process that involves the formation and modulation of sets of associations between stimuli and network's responses. The dissociated rat hippocampal neurons were cultured on a multi-electrode array (MEA) substrate. So the electrophysiological activity can be extracellularly recorded, the response of network dynamics induced by electrical pulse stimulation can be analyzed using the recorded data. The test stimuli patterns were different interval twice stimuli. Each stimulus is voltage-controlled pulses (100μs at +0.6V, followed by 100μs at -0.6V). With the intervals between two stimuli decreasing such as a series of 100ms, 50ms, 20ms and 10ms, the response duration of cultured neuronal network increased. The firing rate of neuronal network was affected by the stimuli patterns: compare with the spontaneous firings of neurons, after the quick electrical stimulation (10ms interval stimuli pattern), the firing rate of neuronal network increases. On the contrary, the slow electrical stimulation (100ms interval stimuli pattern) depresses the firing rate of neuronal network.