Development of regional specificity of spinal and medullary dorsal horn neurons

Figure 1 Neuronal growth in trigeminal subnucleus caudalis, spinal dorsal horn and hippocampus cultures. Examples of images were recorded at day 14 after plating. Vc: Trigeminal subnucleus caudalis; SDH: Spinal dorsal horn; Hip: Hippocampus.

Figure 2 Whole-cell responses mediated by glutamate. A: Examples of current traces recorded in Vc neurons. The currents were evoked with glutamate at concentrations as indicated; B: Summary data (mean ± SEM) of peak current density evoked with 1000 μmol/L of glutamate respectively from Vc, SDH and Hip neurons. Values in brackets indicate number of neurons tested. ^bP < 0.01, independent t-test, indicate significant differences detected in Vc vs that in SDH or Hip neurons. Vc: Trigeminal subnucleus caudalis; SDH: Spinal dorsal horn; Hip: Hippocampus.

Figure 3 Cell viability in in trigeminal subnucleus caudalis and spinal dorsal horn cultures. Bars show the percentage values (mean ± SEM) of live cells in Vc and SDH cells detected during and after plating as indicated. ^bP < 0.01 (independent t-test) when compared with that in SDH cultures. Numbers in brackets indicate the number of dishes tested. Vc: Trigeminal subnucleus caudalis; SDH: Spinal dorsal horn; Hip: Hippocampus.

Figure 4 Effects of co-culture. The bar graph shows summary data (mean ± SEM) of the total length of processes at day 7 after plating (A), current density (B) and occurrence of mEPSC activity (C) recorded at day 14 after plating. Vc/SDH: Vc cells co-cultured with SDH; SDH/Vc: SDH cells co-cultured with Vc; ^aP < 0.05, ^bP < 0.01 (independent t-test in A and B, Fisher’s exact test in C) when compared with those in co-cultures. Numbers in brackets indicate the number of neurons tested. Vc: Trigeminal subnucleus caudalis; SDH: Spinal dorsal horn. mEPSC: Miniature excitatory post-synaptic current.