Fig. 1

Development of a screening assay using primary neurons. a Schematic representation of the workflow. b Example images illustrating data analysis with CellProfiler (segmentation) and CellProfiler Analyst (training and classification). Dead neurons can be identified based on their shrunken and brightly stained nuclei. c Heatmap illustrating the variability of neuronal viability between technical replicate wells. Z-scores (the number of standard deviations by which each value differs from the mean) were calculated independently for control and NMDA-treated wells. d Comparison of cell viability values that were either calculated for each single well of the plate shown in c, or based on the summed cell counts from groups of two, three, or five wells from that plate. Error bars indicate the SD