Astrocytes induce desynchronizing effects in neuron-astrocyte networks
cultured on microelectrode arrays
Abstract
In this work, we aim to study how astrocytes control
electrophysiological activity during network formation. Here we use a
combination of spike/burst analysis and complex analysis of the raw
neuronal signals to assess the role of astrocytes on microelectrode
arrays (MEA). We cultured rat primary cortical neurons and astrocytes on
60-electrode MEAs with different neuron/astrocyte ratios ranging from
“pure” neuronal cultures (NS) without separately added astrocytes to
co-cultures containing 50% neurons and 50% astrocytes. We analyzed the
spike and burst rates, as well as the complexity-entropy causality
planes of the signals to deeply study the patterning of the neuronal
signals.
Moreover, we classified the spike waveforms from the NS and the
co-cultures based on their signal properties.
The dataset used can be found at: https://zenodo.org/record/7741379.