|
|
|
| Abstract Title:
|
| The Spatial Quantification of Evoked Neural Responses to Excitatory and Inhibitory Stimulus Waveforms
|
| Graduate Student Presenter:
|
Michelle L Kuykendal
|
| Name of the Author(s) and Affiliation(s):
|
M.L. Kuykendal, J.D. Ross, S.P. DeWeerth, Laboratory for Neuroengineering, Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology / Emory University, 313 Ferst Dr., Atlanta, GA 30332-0535
|
|
Focusing extracellular stimuli for spatial selectivity is an ongoing challenge. Although models have been previously presented to investigate the effects of various waveforms, it is difficult to experimentally validate the stimulus-evoked cellular response. By understanding and characterizing the way in which this stimulation technique elicits cellular activity in a multi-electrode array (MEA), stimulus waveforms could be more optimally shaped to achieve increased precision and localization of extracellular stimuli. Improved control over stimulation translates to increased functional control for neural interfacing devices, such as retinal implants or deep brain stimulators. Our experimental design is to track evoked responses from individual neurons to spatially quantify their activity. Specifically, during our experiments we actively suppress all spontaneous activity in the neural network using synaptic blockers to investigate the primary response to our stimulation. We use fluorescent Ca2+-binding dyes in conjunction with custom image processing software and a data acquisition platform that automatically manipulates the microscope stage to optically assess cellular activity. This high-throughput system enables us to quickly analyze dish-wide activity. In this work we explore the spatial extent to which both excitatory and inhibitory stimuli elicit or suppress cellular activity over a large window of 1200um X 1200um spanning 25 electrodes.
|
|
|
