A Light Induced Systematic Effect on Neuronal Network Bursting

Abstract

In this work, we investigated a systematic effect that decreases both the size and frequency of network bursting activity. We found that this effect does not depend on the UV laser light utilized for photostimulation, but does depend on the power and exposure-rate of the 490-nm LED used in Ca imaging. We believe that this is due to phototoxicity affecting the activity of the neurons themselves. By reducing both the power and imaging framerate, we were able to minimize this effect with minimal changes to the network bursting activity.