Electrophysiological and Neuronal Localization Techniques for Cultured Aplysia Neurons

Studies of monosynaptic connections between sensory and motor neurons create a unique and valuable opportunity to study synapse formation and plasticity in simple neural networks. It has been shown that Aplysia neurons demonstrate synapsespecificity in vitro when cultured on modified tissue cultured dishes with poly-l-lysine,  facilitating various network configurations. Moreover, spontaneous non-directed network formation occurs on hemolymph-coated culture dishes, providing an environment that allows for significant electrical activity in vitro. Here, we began analysis of  the electrical  activity recorded from networks of motor neurons and sensory neurons cultured on coated tissue culture dishes with poly-l-lysine and hemolymph. Preliminary signal analysis of the network and its synapse formation dynamics in terms of electrical activity was performed. Our interest lies in the dynamics leading to the functional connectivity of stable neuronal cultures and how that structure changes with time, both with and without external stimulation. Electrophysiological recordings of these cultures could provide a rich data set from which novel spike sorting techniques, cell localization techniques, and causal network inference procedures could be tested.