Organotypic bioelectric activity in cultured reaggregates of dissociated rodent brain cells.

Complex repetitive-spike or slow-wave discharges can be evoked, and can also occur spontaneously, in small clusters of neurons which reaggregate in vitro after dissociation of cerebral cortex, brainstem, or spinal cord from the fetal mouse. Even after random dispersion in culture, these cells still form functional synaptic networks with bioelectric discharge patterns and pharmacologic sensitivities characteristic of the organ (that is, organotypic).