Brain injuries are traditionally extremely hard for us to cure with the current state of medical knowledge. Mild cases of Traumatic brain injury (TBI) or concussion can be treated with rest and slow return to normal activities. However, for severe TBI’s the care mostly focuses on stabilizing the patient, ensuring the brain is getting enough enough oxygen, controlling blood and brain pressure, and preventing further injury to the head or neck. Post stabilization if the patient is stable we use therapies to recover functions, relearn skills etc. But that is just training the brain to use different neurons to perform tasks that the damaged ones used to do.
The researchers at the University of Oxford have had a breakthrough that brings the ability to provide tailored repairs for those who suffer brain injuries. The researchers demonstrated for the first time that neural cells can be 3D printed to mimic the architecture of the cerebral cortex. This research has been published in Nature Communications earlier this month.
Engineering human tissue with diverse cell types and architectures remains challenging. The cerebral cortex, which has a layered cellular architecture composed of layer-specific neurons organised into vertical columns, delivers higher cognition through intricately wired neural circuits. However, current tissue engineering approaches cannot produce such structures. Here, we use a droplet printing technique to fabricate tissues comprising simplified cerebral cortical columns. Human induced pluripotent stem cells are differentiated into upper- and deep-layer neural progenitors, which are then printed to form cerebral cortical tissues with a two-layer organization. The tissues show layer-specific biomarker expression and develop a structurally integrated network of processes. Implantation of the printed cortical tissues into ex vivo mouse brain explants results in substantial structural implant-host integration across the tissue boundaries as demonstrated by the projection of processes and the migration of neurons, and leads to the appearance of correlated Ca2+ oscillations across the interface. The presented approach might be used for the evaluation of drugs and nutrients that promote tissue integration. Importantly, our methodology offers a technical reservoir for future personalized implantation treatments that use 3D tissues derived from a patient’s own induced pluripotent stem cells.
I did try reading the paper but it pretty much went over my head. However I am extremely happy to see significant progress being made in this field and look forward to reading more about this technology as it is refined and improved.
Source: Oxford researchers develop 3D printing method that shows promise for repairing brain injuries
– Suramya