Synchronous bursting and asynchronous firing activity in cultured cortical neurons

Spontaneous activity in cultured networks of cortical neurons was investigated by extracellular recordings of their spatiotemporal firing patterns, using planar electrode arrays which comprised 64 microelectrodes. In the cultured cortical networks synchronous bursts states, asynchronous bursts states and non-burst firings states were observed by changing the Ca/sup 2+/, Mg/sup 2+/ and K/sup +/ concentration of the extracellular solution and by adding NMDA and non-NMDA receptor antagonists. Observed phenomena, such as burst generation and asynchronous firing activity as a function of the activation of random synaptic inputs, could be simulated by using a simplified single neuron model.