Recovery after focal damage in neuronal cultures

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the impact of localized laser ablation on the activity in neuronal cultures. We analyzed neuronal network’s behaviour before and after the ablation, centering the study in a time window of about 10 minutes after damage. The results show that the global activity and functional connectivity decrease after the applied damage, together with the emergence of functional communities that indicate a fragmentation of the network. In addition, it seems that new functional links appear in the neighborhood of the targeted area, suggesting the strengthening of the surviving connections and hints at the fight of the culture against damage. The results could be interesting to model damage in the brain