Highlights d IL-6, IL-10, IL-1ra, CCL2, and CRP rose significantly on landing after a year in space d IL-6 and IL-1ra are potential targets for pharmacological intervention in astronauts d These cytokines are also associated with muscle regeneration in response to gravity d Muscle-generated IL-6 drives classic signaling cascades in an anti-inflammatory role

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Micro-electrode arrays (MEAs) can be used to investigate drug toxicity, design paradigms for next-generation personalized medicine, and study network dynamics in neuronal cultures. In contrast with more traditional methods, such as patch-clamping, which can only record activity from a single cell, MEAs can record simultaneously from multiple sites in a network, without requiring the arduous task of placing each electrode individually. Moreover, numerous control and stimulation configurations can be easily applied within the same experimental setup, allowing for a broad range of dynamics to be explored. One of the key dynamics of interest in these in vitro studies has been the extent to which cultured networks display properties indicative of learning. Mouse neuronal cells cultured on MEAs display an increase in response following training induced by electrical stimulation. This protocol demonstrates how to culture neuronal cells on MEAs; successfully record from over 95% of the plated dishes; establish a protocol to train the networks to respond to patterns of stimulation; and sort, plot, and interpret the results from such experiments. The use of a proprietary system for stimulating and recording neuronal cultures is demonstrated. Software packages are also used to sort neuronal units. A custom-designed graphical user interface is used to visualize post-stimulus time histograms, inter-burst intervals, and burst duration, as well as to compare the cellular response to stimulation before and after a training protocol. Finally, representative results and future directions of this research effort are discussed.

We report on computational and experimental investigations into the effects of high-frequency focused ultrasound stimulation on neuronal tissue. We simultaneously measuring local field potentials as well as extracellular oxygen and potassium concentrations in hippocampal brain slices to investigate physiological responses, including metabolic demand, during ultrasonic stimulation. To better interpret our observations, we utilized computational models that incorporate dynamics for transmembrane ionic and osmotic flows, membrane fluctuations, and metabolism. Our experiments and models suggest that ultrasonic stimulation can produce substantial ionic redistribution that leads to a significant metabolic burden.