Studies of Neuronal Properties in the Reaggregate Cultures of Rat Retinane

用新生大鼠建立视网膜再聚集体培养。所有实验均在电镀后10-15天进行。组织学研究表明，在重组物中有选择性的层形成被重建。由于这些组织特性与体内相似，我们进行了电生理实验，以研究体外可能存在的神经网络，这可能是视网膜功能的基础。可以在最外层的细胞上建立细胞附着结构。在黑暗条件下，最外层约五分之一的细胞表现出自发放电。有趣的是，当光刺激整个重新聚集时，一些神经元的放电频率增加了。具有类似光响应活性的细胞比例为1.6%。由于免疫组织学研究已经报道了最外层的大多数细胞是无毛细胞，而光感受器只定位于中央区域，这些结果表明，在重聚集体培养中，光感受器和无毛细胞之间的功能连接被重建。这些结果也表明，重组培养可以为体外研究神经网络的发展提供有趣的模型。

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.