Prolonged Hyperactivity Elicits Massive and Persistent Chloride Ion Redistribution in Subsets of Cultured Hippocampal Dentate Granule Cells.

Abstract

Maintaining low [Cl - ] in is important for inhibitory function, however, hyperactivity, such as that seen in epilepsy, may lead to elevated [Cl - ] in. Pilocarpine induces hyperactivity in dentate granule cells (DGCs) in hippocampal organotypic slice cultures. Multicellular imaging using a chloride sensing dye with a fluorescence lifetime imaging approach revealed that [Cl - ] in is elevated in a subpopulation of DGCs. Gaussian mixture model analysis is a powerful tool for studying the emergence of cellular heterogeneity in a pathological condition.