Low density culture of mammalian primary neurons in compartmentalized microfluidic devices.

This paper demonstrates the fabrication of a compartmentalized microfluidic device with docking sites to position a single neuron or a cluster of 5-6 neurons along with varying length of microgrooves and the optimization process for culturing primary mammalian neurons at low densities. The principle of centrifugation was employed to situate cells in desired locations followed by the application of a fluid flow to remove the extra or unwanted cells lying in the vicinity of the located neurons. The neuronal cell density was optimized by seeding 10 cells and 10 cells/microfluidic device.