Neuronal cell patterning on a multi-electrode array for a network analysis platform

We studied neuronal cell patterning on a commercial multi-electrode array (MEA). We investigated the surface chemical modification of MEA in order to immobilize Poly-D-lysine (PDL) and then to pattern PDL with a photolithographic method using vacuum ultraviolet light (VUV). We have clarified that the PDL layer was not fully decomposed but was partially fragmented by short-time irradiation with VUV, resulting in a change in the cell adhesiveness of the PDL. We succeeded in patterning primary rat cortex cells without manipulating the cells on MEA more than two months. This cell-adhesiveness change induced by VUV can be applied to any immobilized PDL on other kinds of MEA and culturing substrate. We conducted electrophysiological measurements and found that the patterned neuronal cells were sufficiently matured and developed neural networks, demonstrating that our patterning method is useful for a neuronal network analysis platform.