SPATIAL-DISTRIBUTION OF NEURONS IN TISSUE-CULTURE WELLS - IMPLICATIONS FOR SAMPLING METHODS TO ESTIMATE POPULATION-SIZE

Many laboratory procedures require the counting of cells in culture. W hile many cultured cells may be counted by automated methods, neuronal cultures often require manual cell counting methods that are prohibit ively time-consuming. This paper examines methods of sampling from tis sue culture wells for estimating total cell counts. Performance of sam pling and estimation schemes will depend in part on how the cells dist ribute themselves within a well. Spatial statistical analysis techniqu es are applied to the known total number and distribution of neurons i n two wells counted in a grid scheme to demonstrate some important fea tures of the neuron distributional patterns. Based on these two wells and simulated realizations from other point processes, a new sampling and estimation technique using open wedge-shaped sampling regions radi ating from the centre of the well is proposed. This method is shown to result in more accurate estimates of the total number of neurons in t he well than standard methods.