Research findings, "Comparative sensitivity of human and rat neural cultures to chemical-induced inhibition of neurite outgrowth," are discussed in a new report. "There is a need for rapid, efficient and cost-effective alternatives to traditional in vivo developmental neurotoxicity testing. In vitro cell culture models can recapitulate many of the key cellular processes of nervous system development, including neurite outgrowth, and may be used as screening tools to identify potential developmental neurotoxicants," scientists in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina report (see also Neurons).
"The present study compared primary rat cortical cultures and human embryonic stem cell-derived neural cultures in terms of: 1) reproducibility of high content image analysis based neurite outgrowth measurements, 2) dynamic range...