Studies of Neuronal Properties in the Reaggregate Cultures of Rat Retinane

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Retinal reaggregate cultures were established from new born rats. All the experiments were carried out 10-15 days after plating.Histological studies revealed that selective layer formation were reconstituted in the reaggegates. Since these histological properties resembled those in vivo, electro-physiological experiments were carried out in order to study the possible presence of neural net works in vitro, which might be rudiMentary for retinal functions. It was possible to establish cell attach configuration on the cells in the outermost layer. Under a dark condition, about one fifth of the cells in the outermost layer showed spontaneous discharges. Interestingly, a few neurons increased the frequency of discharges when light stimuli was given to the whole reaggregate. The proportion of the cells with such light-response like activity was 1.6%. Since it was already reported by an immunohistological study that most cells in the outermost layer were amacrine cells and the photoreceptors were exclusively localized in the central region, these results indicated that functional connections were reconstituted between the photoreceptors and the amacrine cells in the reaggregate cultures. These results also demonstrated that the reaggregate cultures could provide interesting models to study the development of neural networks in vitro.