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academies
17
th
International Conference on
4
th
International Conference on
NEUROLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE
&
MENTAL HEALTH AND PRIMARY CARE
October 16-18, 2017 | Toronto, Canada
J Neurol Neurorehabil Res 2017 | Volume 2 Issue 3
Enabling high-resolution bioelectrical imaging to improve large-scale monitoring of neural activity in
health and disease conditions
Hayder Amin
Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy
N
otwithstanding the remarkable advances of the last
decade in Biotechnology and Neuro-technologies,
progresses inunderstandingbraindisorders and indeveloping
novel therapeutic strategies have remained stall. One of the
today’s challenges in neurodegenerative disease research is
the lack of efficient predictive assays that can pinpoint the
onset of disease mechanisms, and that can be used for drug
development. In this respect, the confluenceof newemerging
in vitro high-density chip-based technologies represents
a unique opportunity. High-density multielectrode arrays
(HD-MEAs) enable recordings of neuronal spiking activity of
neuronal networks, simultaneously from several thousands
of densely integrated electrodes (4096 electrodes). The
result is an unprecedented and a unique sensing capability
that provides access to extracellular signals in large-scale
neuronal networks cultured on-a-chip. Furthermore, HD-
MEAs allowstudying neuronal ensembles and their responses
(with single-neuron detail) to chemicals and drugs as well as
for assessing developmental impairments of neuronal spiking
activity in genetic models of various diseases. On the other
hand, new methodology such as high-content imaging (HCI)
is providing multiple cellular measurements from a single
experiment. Here, we present a novel approach based on the
combination of these methodologies, i.e. HD-MEAs and HCI,
aim at characterizing neuronal function and network-wide
dynamics in neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental
disorders and translating these results into a human-based
neural system. In particular, we demonstrate on-a-chip
multimodal readouts; to reveal early activity-dependent
effects induced by the excitotoxicity of Aβ oligomers in vitro
hippocampal cultures of a neurodegenerative Alzheimer’s
disease (AD) model, to decipher critical developmental delay
in an embryonic neuronal network of DiGeorge Syndrome,
which is demonstrated by altered chloride cotransporters
and aggravated electrophysiological developmental profile
and to characterize electrical responses and spontaneous
activity of human-iPS-derived neuronal networks.
Speaker Biography
Hayder Amin is a Senior Post-doctoral Researcher at the Fondazione Istituto Italiano
di Tecnologia (IIT). He has received a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering
from Martin-Luther University and completed his PhD in Microtechnology for
Neuroelectronic and Neuroscience from IIT in 2015. His research employs a diverse
range of competencies, including, but not limited to, neuroscience, electrophysiology,
neurodegeneration, neurodevelopment, data analysis, and cellular and molecular
biology. He is using a combination of cutting-edge approaches such as confocal, calcium
and high-content-imaging, and large-scale electrical platform (HD-MEAs) toward the
development, implementation, and evaluation of bioassays for drug development,
disease models, and fundamental neuroscience applications. His interdisciplinary
competencies aim at addressing the functional changes of neuronal network-wide
activity in neurodegenerative disease (Alzheimer’s disease), neurodevelopment in
genetic mouse models (DiGeorge Syndrome), and translated applications in human
cell-based assays for drug development and cell therapy.
e
:hayder.amin@iit.it