Fig. 1

Spontaneously active neurons and coordinated ensemble activity were reduced specifically in the striatum, but not the cortex, of primary cultures from the R6/1 HD model (HD) compared to wild-type (WT). a Primary cultures were obtained from the striatum and cortex of E18 WT and HD mouse embryos, and neuronal spontaneous activity was measured using fluorescence calcium imaging at 15 DIV. b Representative average fluorescence trace and reconstructed spikes from neurons are represented in raster plots for WT (top) and HD (bottom) for striatal (STR, left) and cortical (CTX, right) cultures. Vertical blue bars highlight network bursts. c Percentage of active neurons in the cultures. d Percentage of active neurons that participate in spontaneous network burst. e Average network inter-burst interval (IBI), i.e., the average time between consecutive network bursts. f Global activity rate of the cultures, i.e., total number of spikes per unit time within the field of view. g Fraction of independent spikes, i.e., those spikes not followed or preceded by any other spike within 50 ms in the whole system. c–g Each circle in the plot represents a single culture from at least three different litters (c, f, g: STR WT n = 38; STR HD n = 37; CTX WT n = 19; CTX HD n = 22) (d, e: STR WT n = 22; STR HD n = 16; CTX WT n = 19; CTX HD n = 22), thick line the mean, thick shaded area the standard error of the mean, and thin shaded area the standard deviation. Statistical analysis was performed using two-sample Student’s t test between WT and HD populations, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01