Hypertension is associated with increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system and cardiac beta adrenergic responsiveness (Anderson et. al., 1989, Li et. al., 2012). However, the exact mechanism remains poorly understood. The physiology and pharmacology of the individual ion channels and signalling molecules on the single neuron and myocyte as isolated systems are well described. However, relatively little is known about the cell-to-cell interaction that takes place. Tao et. al., (2011) have modelled this dual cell coupling using bioinformatics on single cell data to re-assemble the cell network from individual ion channels. Nevertheless the predictive power of this modelling is limited because it has not been experimentally validated against physiologically coupled neurons and myocytes. Here we describe a method of culturing cells as a macroscopic confluent monolayer that will enable detailed in vitro electrophysiological investigations of the communication between the neurons and the myocytes in health and disease. Neonatal ventricular myocytes and stellate ganglia were excised from Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats (SHR), Wistar Kyoto (WKY) and Sprague Dawley (SD) rats in accordance with the Home Office Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (UK). The heart and ganglia were enzymatically digested to obtain isolated cells using pancreatin, collagenase and trypsin respectively. Cells were pre-plated for one hour in order to reduce fibroblast contamination before cells were plated on their own, or together to create co-cultures at a ratio of 1:20 neuron:myocyte. We established a stable co-culture model system (Fig. 1 A-C) and report functional communication between neurons and myocytes by stimulating neurons with 10μM nicotine in which the beat rate increased by 25%, 20% and 33% respectively in three experiments. We have also performed pilot patch clamp studies on control SD cultures and shown how these neurons behave under whole cell current clamp conditions (Fig. 1D). In conclusion, the successful co-culture of ventricular myocytes and stellate ganglion neurons has enabled us to simultaneously investigate different parameters in myocyte-neuron signalling. In particular, the preparation will enable us to establish the electrophysiological profiles of these cell types in cardiac-neural regulation in normal and diseased tissue. Key words: Hypertension, myocyte, neurons, culture, electrophysiology