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Objective(s): Cell therapy has provided clinical applications to the treatment of motor neuron diseases. The current obstacle in stem cell therapy is to direct differentiation of stem cells into neurons in the neurodegenerative disorders. Biomaterial scaffolds can improve cell differentiation and are widely used in translational medicine and tissue engineering. The aim of this study was to compare the efficiency of two-dimensional with a three-dimensional culture system in their ability to generate functional motor neuron-like cells from adipose-derived stem cells. Materials and Methods: We compared motor neuron-like cells derived from rat adipose tissue in differentiation, adhesion, proliferation, and functional properties on two-dimensional with three-dimensional culture systems. Neural differentiation was analyzed by immunocytochemistry for immature (Islet1) and mature (HB9, ChAT, and synaptophysin) motor neuron markers. Results: Our results indicated that the three-dimensional environment exhibited an increase in the number of Islet1. In contrast, two-dimensional culture system resulted in more homeobox gene (HB9), Choline Acetyltransferase (ChAT), and synaptophysin positive cells. The results of this investigation showed that proliferation and adhesion of motor neuron-like cells significantly increased in three-dimensional compared with two-dimensional environments. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggested that three-dimension may create a proliferative niche for motor neuron-like cells. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that three-dimensional culture may mimic neural stem cell environment for neural tissue regeneration.

Objective(s): Seizure detection during online recording of electrophysiological parameters is very important in epileptic patients. In the present study, online analysis of field potential recordings was used for detecting spontaneous seizures in epileptic animals.Materials and Methods: Epilepsy was induced in rats by pilocarpine injection. During the chronic period of the pilocarpine model, local field potential (LFP) recording was run for at least 24 hr. At the same time, video monitoring of the animals was done to determine the real time of seizure occurrence. Both power and sample entropy of LFP were used for online analysis.Results: Obtained results showed that changes in LFP power are a better index for seizure detection. In addition, when we used one hundred consecutive epochs (each epoch equals 10 ms) of LFP for data analysis, the best detection was achieved.Conclusion: It may be suggested that power is a suitable parameter for online analysis of LFP in order to detect the spontaneous seizures correctly.