Novel advancements in three-dimensional neural tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Abstract

Neurological diseases and injuries present some of the greatest challenges in modern medicine, often causing irreversible and lifelong burdens in the people whom they afflict. Conditions of stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and neurodegenerative diseases have devastating consequences on millions of people each year, and yet there are currently no therapies or interventions that can repair the structure of neural circuits and restore neural tissue function in the brain and spinal cord. Despite the challenges of overcoming these limitations, there are many new approaches under development that hold much promise. Neural tissue engineering aims to restore and influence the function of damaged or diseased neural tissue generally through the use of stem cells and biomaterials. Many types of biomaterials may be implemented in various designs to influence the survival, differentiation, and function of developing stem cells, as well as to guide neurite extension and morphological architecture of cell cultures. Such designs may aim to recapitulate the cellular interactions, extracellular matrix characteristics, biochemical factors, and sequences of events that occur in neurodevelopment, in addition to supporting cell survival, differentiation, and integration into innate neural tissue.