Figure 5

No effect of dimethyl fumarate (DMF) on the network activity of primary dissociated cortical cultures grown on multi-electrode arrays (MEAs). A) Dissociated cortical cultures were grown on multi-electrode arrays and visualized by phase-contrast microscopy. Black discs correspond to electrodes. B) Typical trace recorded from one MEA electrode showing the parameters used for statistical analysis. C) Spike raster plot of spontaneously active cortical neurons on one MEA in artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF) or 10 μM DMF. Each bar represents one spike; electrode numbers are displayed on the vertical axis. The network exhibits correlated burst activity across several electrodes, which is not altered from baseline by DMF. D) Treatment with 10 (top) or 100 (bottom) μM DMF for the indicated times does not change the number of spikes and bursts per minute, the inter-burst interval, or the network activity using Cohen’s kappa as measure of synchrony of the activity on all 64 electrodes on the chip. Bar graphs of all experiments represent the means ± standard error of the mean (SEM) of three independent experiments performed in triplicate. *P < 0.05, two-tailed Student’s t-test.