RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Enhancing burst activation and propagation in cultured neuronal networks by photo-stimulation
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 027177
DO 10.1101/027177
A1 Ghazaleh Afshar
A1 Ahmed El Hady
A1 Theo Geisel
A1 Walter Stuehmer
A1 Fred Wolf
YR 2015
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/09/18/027177.abstract
AB Spontaneous bursting activity in cultured neuronal networks is initiated by leader neurons, which constitute a small subset of first-to-fire neurons forming a sub-network that recruits follower neurons into the burst. While the existence and stability of leader neurons is well established, the influence of stimulation on the leader-follower dynamics is not sufficiently understood. By combining multi-electrode array recordings with whole field optical stimulation of cultured Channelrhodopsin-2 transduced hippocampal neurons, we show that fade-in photo-stimulation induces a significant shortening of intra-burst firing rate peak delay of follower electrodes after offset of the stimulation compared to unperturbed spontaneous activity. Our study shows that optogenetic stimulation can be used to change the dynamical fine structure of self-organized network bursts.