Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have created a new way to engineer nerve structures, or constructs, in culture. This proof-of-principle research has implications for eventually becoming a new method to repair spinal cord injury in humans.

Previously, they showed that they could grow axons by placing neurons from rat dorsal root ganglia on nutrient-filled plastic plates. Axons sprouted from the neurons on each plate and connected with neurons on the other plate. The plates were then slowly pulled apart over a series of days, aided by a precise computer-controlled motor system.

In this study, the neurons were elongated to 10mm over seven days, after which they were embedded in a collagen matrix (with growth factors), rolled into a form resembling a jelly roll, and then implanted into a rat model of spinal cord injury.

The long bundles of axons span two populations of neurons, and these neuron constructs can grow axons in two directions – toward each other and into the host spinal cord at each side. That way they can integrate and connect the “cables” to the host tissue in order to bridge a spinal cord lesion.

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine news release