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Updated: May 29, 2026

Interfacing 3D Engineered Neuronal Cultures to Micro-Electrode Arrays: An Innovative In Vitro Experimental Model
Published on: October 18, 2015
Effects of glial release and somatic receptors on bursting in synchronized neuronal networks
Xuan Zhan1, Pik-Yin Lai, C K Chan
1Department of Physics, Graduate Institute of Biophysics and Center for Complex Systems, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan 320, Republic of China.
Abstract:
A model is constructed to study the phenomenon of bursting in cultured neuronal networks by considering the effects of glial release and the extrasynaptic receptors on neurons. In the frequently observed situations of synchronized bursting, the whole neuronal network can be described by a mean-field model. In this model, the dynamics of the synchronized network in the presence of glia is represented by an effective two-compartment neuron with stimulations on both the dendrite and soma. Numerical simulations of this model show that most of the experimental observations in bursting, in particular the high plateau and the slow repolarization, can be reproduced. Our findings suggest that the effects of glia release and extrasynaptic receptors, which are usually neglected in neuronal models, can become important in intense network activities. Furthermore, simulations of the model are also performed for the case of glia-suppressed cultures to compare with recent experimental results.
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