Cross-correlation based methods for estimating the functional connectivity in populations of cortical neurons

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the functional connectivity in in-vitro cultured cortical neurons plated into highdensity passive microelectrodes arrays. We compare standard and partial correlation methods in order to find out the main pathways between two electrodes. In summary, while standard correlation considers just pairs of electrodes, giving a general overview of the network, partial correlation can give more details about the connectivity map due to the cancellation of indirect connections.