Characterization of Neuronal Differentiation and Activity in Human-Induced Pluripotent Neural Stem Cells

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of death and disability in the United States, with more than 1.7 million people seeking medical care for TBI annually. Although there are currently no eff ective clinical treatments for TBI, preclinical treatments using neural stem cells (NSCs) have shown promising results to promote tissue neuroprotection and recovery post-injury. This study aims to analyze how NSCs diff erentiate into neural networks and seeks to characterize their corresponding activity level to help improve preclinical TBI treatments. Based upon past studies, we hypothesized that NSCs would diff erentiate into mature neurons within two weeks, but would have a delayed functional activity response of 1–2 months.