RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 High Fidelity Cryopreservation and Recovery of Primary Rodent Cortical Neurons JF eneuro JO eNeuro FD Society for Neuroscience SP ENEURO.0135-18.2018 DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0135-18.2018 VO 5 IS 5 A1 Sara S. Parker A1 Aubin Moutal A1 Song Cai A1 Sambamurthy Chandrasekaran A1 Mackenzie R. Roman A1 Anita A. Koshy A1 Rajesh Khanna A1 Konrad E. Zinsmaier A1 Ghassan Mouneimne YR 2018 UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/5/5/ENEURO.0135-18.2018.abstract AB Cell cryopreservation improves reproducibility and enables flexibility in experimental design. Although conventional freezing methodologies have been used to preserve primary neurons, poor cell viability and reduced survival severely limited their utility. We screened several high-performance freezing media and found that CryoStor10 (CS10) provided superior cryoprotection to primary mouse embryonic cortical neurons compared to other commercially-available or traditional reagents, permitting the recovery of 68.8% of cells relative to a fresh dissection. We characterized developmental, morphometric, and functional indicators of neuron maturation and found that, without exception, neurons recovered from cryostorage in CS10 media faithfully recapitulate in vitro neurodevelopment in-step with neurons obtained by fresh dissection. Our method establishes cryopreserved neurons as a reliable, efficient, and equivalent model to fresh neuron cultures.