抄録
Myelination is essential for rapid conduction of action potentials in central nervous system. The loss of myelin leads to impairment of motor and cognitive functions. Remyelination by transplantation of oligodendrocytes (OL) is a potent therapeutic strategy for the demyelinating diseases. However, little is known about how the conduction velocity increases after remyelination. Here, the aim of this study is to develop a culture device for evaluating the change in action potential conduction velocity along axon in co-culture of neurons and OL. We developed the culture device which composed of a culture chamber and a microelectrode array (MEA). The chamber has two neuron culture compartments and four OL culture compartments which are interconnected by four microchannels. Electrodes of the MEA were in alignment with the microchannels. Cortical neurons and OL were cultured separately with a co-culture chamber. OL maturation and axon outgrowth through the microchannels were confirmed by immunofluorescence imaging. After neural activities were recorded, spike sorting was performed to separate spikes into clusters of individual neurons. The propagations of action potentials along axon were detected from spike trains. Then, the conduction velocity increased with culture days. These results suggest that this device can be utilized for evaluating the change in action potential conduction velocity in myelination process.
