Monitoring Central and Peripheral Nervous System Neural Function Using Planar and Mesh Microelectrode Arrays
Haider, Bilal.
2020
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Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts
University, 2020.
Submitted to the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering.
Advisor: Brian Timko.
Committee: Ingrid Van Welie, David Kaplan, and Michael Levin.
Keyword: Biomedical engineering.
In-vivo neural mechanisms in both central nervous (CNS) and in peripheral nervous system (PNS) tissue rely on firing patterns to communicate ... read morecomplex brain functionality and responses to nociception respectively. As such, in-vitro diseases and neuronal development models have been fabricated to study pathophysiological responses relevant to humans and/or fundamental cell-cell interactions conserved among organisms. Despite their rapid advances, little work has been done to characterize electrophysiological properties of cells in these models with high spatial and/or temporal resolution. In this study, we attempt to utilize planar high-temporal resolution microelectrode arrays to monitor and compare neuronal electrophysiological development of these properties using human induced neural stem cells (hiNSCs) and chicken dorsal root ganglia (cDRGs) in 2D. We also cultured these cells in preliminary 3D conditions. We showed how electrodes can have their electrical sensing activity enhanced with electrode coatings and discussed the metrics to analyze neural oscillations. We then developed a 3D mesh microelectrode array scaffold that could be used in 3D in-vitro systems, specifically the silk-brain and silk-cornea models. We conclude that cDRGs respond to TRPVA1 agonists, sufficient for PNS-relevant electrophysiological model response. We also conclude hiNSCs demonstrate the ability to have significant neural oscillations in 2D culture, sufficient for a CNS-relevant electrophysiological model response. For cortical-like tissue, this would be advantageous in measuring any underlying electrophysiological complexities, specifically, neural oscillatory activity, bursting, and synchrony measures with the culture and between local single neurons. This would allow for the comparison of these models to the connectivity and behavior of cortical tissue present in-vivo. For peripheral nervous systems, this would allow for tracking of nociception with specific spatial acuity in the neural tissue. This work also sets the bases for future studies of electrophysiological properties in disease models not yet analyzed for both 3D silk-based systems.read less - ID:
- ht24x000k
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