ABSTRACT
This chapter describes acutely dissociated and cultured cells from the mammalian nervous system. Cultured neural slices are also known as organotypic slice cultures, because they retain much of the connectivity typical of the organ of origin. As a general principle, tissue from embryos or newborn animals is much easier to maintain in culture. This applies equally to dissociated cell preparations. Two kinds of simplification are made when neurons are dissociated or maintained in cell culture: first, all inputs from other parts of the brain are severed; second, growth occurs in a simplified, artificial environment. The structure in the original slices tends to become more diffuse as the neurons migrate and extend new processes. The beauty of cultures is that a complex three-dimensional structure containing many billions of interconnected neurons—the nervous system—is reduced to a two-dimensional structure containing a much smaller number of cells.
