Project description
Novel soft electrodes 'cultured' with neural precursor cells will help study brain development
The brain contains about 100 billion neurons and about as many glial cells. These cells organise during development into structurally and functionally different tissues that work together to enable cognition, movement, sensation, emotion and more. Cell culture capabilities have progressed from individual cell colonies to functional 3D structures acting like organ systems (assembloids). Now, methods to study and manipulate assembloids must catch up. The STRELECOID project is planning to integrate novel stretchable mesh electrodes into neurospheres, free-form clusters of neural precursor cells. The electrodes will be used to apply physiological sensory input to the developing 'brain' or assembloid as well as to monitor changes. Ultimately, researchers hope to gain insight into often-debilitating neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and autism.
Objective
Recent advances in cellular engineering allow to recruit skin cells from donors and reprogram them into neural stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) bear the genetic code of the human patient. Efforts to culture these cells in-vitro have been successful in creating a wide variety of 3D arrangements called neurospheres. Because the human central nervous system is by and large inaccessible at all developmental stages, these functional tissue preparations are invaluable. Furthermore, clinical studies performed in animal models are known to translate poorly to humans and therefore these systems provide unprecedented advantages: human neurons in a controlled environment that have the genetic signature of psychiatric or mental disorders borne by the donor patient, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Finally, compared to animal studies where overwhelmingly only male animals are studied, stem cell research can operate on both sexes.
The combination of new biomaterials, genome engineering and massively parallel single-cell transcriptomics opens opportunities to precisely study human brain disease
A new exciting development is the possibility to form so-called assembloids, whereby organoids of different brain regions, as for example cortical and thalamic neural ensembles, are brought in proximity and self-assemble into anatomically correct brain regions. These approaches are necessary to study disorders like epilepsy. However these cultures lack physiological sensory input which are key in the development of mental plasticity. Here we plan to overcome this limitation by integrating new mesh-based electrodes that integrate seamlessly into brain tissue and expand symbiotically with the neurosphere as it grows, and thereby have a spatially refined mean to measure but also elicit neural activity. This will shed light on how electric maturation of these neurospheres comes about and help shape them to an anatomically more faithful brain model.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologyepilepsy
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologydementiaalzheimer
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinepsychiatry
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologycells technologiesstem cells
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologyparkinson
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
52428 Julich
Germany