REVIEW ARTICLE
An Overview of Studies Demonstrating that ex vivo Neuronal Networks Display Multiple Complex Behaviors: Emergent Properties of Nearest-Neighbor Interactions of Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurons.
Thomas B. Shea1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 15
First Page: 3
Last Page: 15
Publisher ID: TONEUJ-15-3
DOI: 10.2174/1874205X02115010003
Article History:
Received Date: 09/9/2020Revision Received Date: 04/1/2021
Acceptance Date: 14/1/2021
Electronic publication date: 22/03/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The responsiveness of the human nervous system ranges from the basic sensory interpretation and motor regulation to so-called higher-order functions such as emotion and consciousness. Aspects of higher-order functions are displayed by other mammals and birds. In efforts to understand how neuronal interaction can generate such a diverse functionality, murine embryonic cortical neurons were cultured on Petri dishes containing multi-electrode arrays that allowed recording and stimulation of neuronal activity. Despite the lack of major architectural features that govern nervous system development in situ, this overview of multiple studies demonstrated that these 2-dimensional ex vivo neuronal networks nevertheless recapitulate multiple key aspects of nervous system development and activity in situ, including density-dependent, the spontaneous establishment of a functional network that displayed complex signaling patterns, and responsiveness to environmental stimulation including generation of appropriate motor output and long-term potentiation. These findings underscore that the basic interplay of excitatory and inhibitory neuronal activity underlies all aspects of nervous system functionality. This reductionist system may be useful for further examination of neuronal function under developmental, homeostatic, and neurodegenerative conditions.
