Abstract:
In the adult brain, neural stem cells are largely restricted into spatially discrete neurogenic niches, and hence areas of neuron loss during neurodegenerative disease or following a stroke or traumatic brain injury do not typically repopulate spontaneously. Moreover, understanding neural activity accompanying the neural repair process is hindered by a lack of minimally invasive devices for the chronic measurement of the electrophysiological dynamics in damaged brain tissue. Here we show that 32 individually addressable platinum microelectrodes integrated into laminin-coated branched polymer scaffolds stereotaxically injected to span a hydrogel-filled cortical lesion and deeper regions in the brains of mice promote neural regeneration while allowing for the tracking of migrating host brain cells into the lesion. Chronic measurements of single-unit activity and neural-circuit analyses revealed the establishment of spiking activity in new neurons in the lesion and their functional connections with neurons deeper in the brain. Electronic implants mimicking the topographical and surface properties of brain vasculature may aid the stimulation and tracking of neural-circuit restoration following injury.
Notes:
Yang, Xiao Qi, Yue Wang, Chonghe Zwang, Theodore J Rommelfanger, Nicholas J Hong, Guosong Lieber, Charles M eng 1R21DA043985-01/U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)/ 1DP1EB025835-01/U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)/ England 2023/10/10 Nat Biomed Eng. 2023 Oct;7(10):1282-1292. doi: 10.1038/s41551-023-01101-6. Epub 2023 Oct 9.
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