I had the same question some years ago and I wrote few notes in the paper I was writing at that time ..."...after analysis of literature concerning the use of organotypic slices applied to neurogenesis, it appears clear that the vast majority of these studies have been carried out on rats. The analysis of literature, along with data obtained in our study, indicate that results obtained in rats are hardly reproducible using mice as donors, since substantial differences exist between the nervous tissues of these species as to their behaviour in culture (House et al., 1998). Yet, the rapid development of transgenic and knockout technology makes it necessary to adapt the employed protocols even for mice cultures. Furthermore, dealing with neurogenesis, conflicting findings involving significant variations between mice and rats can actually correspond to true differences in the potential for plasticity between the two species. For instance, it has been recently shown that adult-born hippocampal neurons are more numerous and faster maturing in rats than in mice (Rosenzweig and Luu, 2010). Similarly, striking examples of structural plasticity, such as local neurogenesis from neocortical neural precursors after ischemic lesion (Ohira et al., 2009) or long-distance growth of axons after cell transplantation in the CNS (Davies et al., 1997), have been reported in adult rats, but not reproduced in mice"

Hello, I am not sure if the cells differ in their viability but maybe the mouse cells might require a slightly different medium than the rat. Ion concentrations can vary slightly between species and differences compared to physiological for calcium or potassium for example might be damaging to cells.

Rat hippocampus different from mouse for functionally. In Morris water maze tests, rats use complex spatial strategies, whereas mice use simple, route-dominated strategy, to find the hidden platform. Mice had smaller neurons with less dendritic length, membrane surface area, and cell volüme. In addition, mice neurons more hyperpolarized. mice neurons may be easy to be damage due to the increased ion that causes hyperpolarization.

Our lab regularly cultures adult mice hippocampal neurons. We usually run our experiments on the 7th, 8th or 9th days in vitro culture. We have seen in past, rat neurons are more stable in cultures. While mouse neurons (both transgenic and wildtype) are healthy until 10 days, rats would survive for 15-20 days, though I am not sure of the exact mechanism since we cultured them with same protocol. We use a media containing Neurobasal A/ B27/Glutamax and growth factors (FGF+PGDF)

It's difficult to compare apples with oranges or other different things. There are surely some differences related to species, so one can be more sensitive to a specific substance or condition, the other more sensitive to another; I don't think one can say some cells in mouse are generally or 100% more sensitive than rat, can say that only for one condition - ion, drug, pH, voltage, age of culture etc.

Actually, mouse liver more sensitive drugs (especially paracetamol), but we can not say samething about neurons, now. if simulate human paracetamol administration (liver effects), you must use rats, not mice.

may be performes new researches about this issue. then we will say something in the future.

Rat and mouse are similar in many features, including (more or less) gestation period / i.u. development, but extension of CA, size of hipp neurons and expansion of networks are obviously different. Feeding a longer axon needs more resources than for a shorter one.

I had the same question some years ago and I wrote few notes in the paper I was writing at that time ..."...after analysis of literature concerning the use of organotypic slices applied to neurogenesis, it appears clear that the vast majority of these studies have been carried out on rats. The analysis of literature, along with data obtained in our study, indicate that results obtained in rats are hardly reproducible using mice as donors, since substantial differences exist between the nervous tissues of these species as to their behaviour in culture (House et al., 1998). Yet, the rapid development of transgenic and knockout technology makes it necessary to adapt the employed protocols even for mice cultures. Furthermore, dealing with neurogenesis, conflicting findings involving significant variations between mice and rats can actually correspond to true differences in the potential for plasticity between the two species. For instance, it has been recently shown that adult-born hippocampal neurons are more numerous and faster maturing in rats than in mice (Rosenzweig and Luu, 2010). Similarly, striking examples of structural plasticity, such as local neurogenesis from neocortical neural precursors after ischemic lesion (Ohira et al., 2009) or long-distance growth of axons after cell transplantation in the CNS (Davies et al., 1997), have been reported in adult rats, but not reproduced in mice"

After a while, I think we finally established this experimental assay in our lab. There are some factors did have an effect on this long term imaging acquisition. This first one is CO2 concentration in our microscope hood, which fortunately fixed by the Zeiss technique supporter. The second one is photo toxic, and when we reduce the laser energy to 0.1% and increase the interval time to 2 hours, we can get some good long term imaging for more than 40 hours. We think that photo toxic is really matter in our case. The third one is cell viability themselves, simply some cell just can not survive, and if you keep working, you may have some feeling about what kind cell can grow well rather than other cells.

use neurobasal plus media and B27 plus media it will prolong the survival and use NGF when you plate.