Changes in extracellular action potential detect kainic acid and trimethyltin toxicity in hippocampal slice preparations earlier than do MAP2 density measurements.

In vitro electrophysiological techniques for the assessment of neurotoxicity could have several advantages over other methods in current use, including the ability to detect damage at a very early stage, and could further assist in replacing animal experimentation in vivo. We investigated how an electrophysiological parameter, the extracellularly-recorded compound action potential ("population spike", PS) could be used as a marker of in vitro neurotoxicity in the case of two well-known toxic compounds, kainic acid (KA) and trimethyltin (TMT). We compared the use of this electrophysiological endpoint with changes in immunoreactivity for microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), a standard histological test for neurotoxicity.