Cultured neural networks

Cultured neural networks are groups of nerve (neurons) and supporting cells (ex. glia) living in vitro (controlled environment outside the organism). These networks provide researchers with access to neural activity in ways that are generally harder to achieve in vivo. Such networks are generally created in one of two ways. The first way is to remove slices of brain tissue from an organism. Appropriately enough, these are called brain slices and existing structure from the plane of the slice are kept mostly intact. However, connections above and below the slice are severed. The second method of creating these networks, is to remove tissue from a region of the nervous system that the researcher is interested in studying (ex. frontal cortex, auditory cortex, spinal cord), dissociate the tissue (break it up mechanically and enzymatically), create a clump of cells, then seed the cells onto a dish, or microelectrode array. In less than a week, these cells have begun to form a new network. Interestingly enough, cell pools from several different mice (including both sexes) can be mixed together and many networks can be formed in this manner.