Cultures of dissociated neurons are an invaluable experimental tool in studying neuronal networks at an intermediate scale in an in-vitro controlled physico-chemical environment. Moreover, current micro-fabrication techniques allow the design of custom connectivity between sub populations, which could  make it possible to carry out computations with devices involving living cells.

In this talk I will present the tale of our exploration of biological computation with neural cultures. I will review properties of neural devices and the modeling approaches we developed to characterize the structure and dynamics of neural networks in cultures.

This concerns the study of activation of neural activity  in disordered populations and the deduction of features of the underlying network connectivity, the study of properties of  neural networks' bursts, and modeling of neurons' and  networks morphogenesis in structured micro environments.