Astrocytes induce desynchronizing effects in neuron-astrocyte networks cultured on microelectrode arrays

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.