Primary Neurons in Culture and Neuronal Cell Lines for In Vitro Neurotoxicological Studies

Primary neuronal cultures and neuronal cell lines derived from rodents are widely used to study basic physiological properties of neurons, and represent a useful tool to study the potential neurotoxicity of chemicals. While short-term culturing of neurons can be a very straightforward process, long-term cultures of relatively pure neuronal populations require more effort. This chapter describes methods and protocols to isolate and culture primary neurons obtained from the rodent cerebellum (cerebellar granule cells), the hippocampus, and the striatum. Furthermore, culturing of rat pheochromocytoma (PC-12) cells is also described, as these cells represent a useful and widely used cell line for in vitro neurotoxicological studies.