Use of local field potentials of dissociated cultures grown on multi-electrode arrays for pharmacological assays

Abstract

In vitro Multi-Electrode Arrays (MEA) are an extracellular recording technology that enables the analysis of networks of neurons in vitro. Neurons in culture exhibit a range of behavioral dynamics, which can be measured in terms of individual action potentials, network-wide synchronized firing and a host of other features that characterize network activity. MEA data analysis was historically focused on high frequency spike data forgoing the low frequency content of the signal. In this study, we use local field potentials, which are low frequency components of MEA signals, to differentiate between two types of antiepileptic drugs (p<0.0001) with different mechanisms of action.