Flow cytometry – accelerating neuroscience research

With the development of greater throughput and sensitivity, flow cytometry has become a unique tool for characterising surface or internal antigen expression of neural cells, rapid sorting of activated neurons, assessment of neurochemical components, and understanding neural morphology and cell density changes during pathophysiology of neurological disorders.

The continual expansion of flow cytometric techniques to assess intracellular changes within neural cells such as calcium influx, generation of cellular reactive oxygens species, and activation of apoptosis, are allowing this technology to be used in the study of brain disorders. All these approaches are expanding the utility of flow cytometry as a valuable tool for neurological examination to assess the impact of neurological damage towards developing novel therapeutics to treat a neurological disorder.