CO-CULTURE OF DISSOCIATED HIPPOCAMPAL AND SYMPATHETIC CELLS FROM THE NEONATAL RAT

¹ Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA

When sympathetic neurones, obtained from superior cervical ganglia of postnatal rats, were grown in microcultures with cells of the postnatal hippocampal formation for 6-44 days, about 70% of the sympathetic neurones formed functional synapses on themselves or a neighbouring sympathetic neurone. In all forty-four cases in which hexamethonium (0·5-1 mM) was applied it strongly or completely blocked the synaptic interaction. This indicates that the synaptic interaction was cholinergic and raises the possibility that the denervated cells of the hippocampal formation induced the cholinergic function in the co-cultured sympathetic neurones.