Activity modulation elicited by electrical stimulation in networks of dissociated cortical neurons

Recent results indicate that cultures of cortical neurons exhibit large amounts of spontaneous modulation. It has even been suggested that results obtained earlier could be explained by spontaneous development, rather than to be due to the external manipulation. This stresses the importance of having detailed knowledge of how a culture responds to stimulation, in order to discern activity modulation from structural plasticity. In this paper we apply several promising techniques of electrical stimulation to describe global network modulation occurring in these preparations. The results allow to anticipate on integration of this work in goal-directed stimulus-induced plasticity.