In summary, we report that simultaneously differentiated hiPSC-derived cortical neurons in co-culture with human primary astrocytes show increasing maturation of network functionality and synchronicity over time when compared to cultures without primary human astrocytes. Our approach is exquisitely suited for sensitive high-content screening approaches such as neurotoxicity screening, target identification and validation, disease modeling, and phenotypic drug screening potentially leading to safer and more efficacious medicines.
