Medical Design Briefs - October 2024 - 44

Implant Powers Healing after Spinal Cord Injury
The implant encourages
nerve cell (neuron) repair
after spinal cord injury.
Royal College of Surgeons in
Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
A research team at RCSI University of
Medicine and Health Sciences has developed
a new implant that conveys electrical
signals and may have the potential to
encourage nerve cell (neuron) repair
after spinal cord injury.
Details of the implant and how it performs
in lab experiments have just been
released in the journal Materials Today.
" To date, it has been extremely difficult
to promote the regrowth of neurons after
spinal cord injury which is a major obstacle
in the development of successful treatments
for such debilitating injuries, " explains
Fergal O'Brien, deputy vice
chancellor for research and innovation
and professor of bioengineering and regenerative
medicine at RCSI and head of
RCSI's Tissue Engineering Research
Group (TERG). " Our research here represents
a promising new approach which
may have potential for the treatment of
spinal cord injuries. "
Spinal cord injury is a devastating
and often paralyzing condition. One
person suffers a spinal cord injury every
week in Ireland, and there are over
2,300 individuals and families living
with spinal cord injury across Ireland.
After injury, the long axonal projections
of nerve cells are cut and 'dieback'
from the injury site, and at the
same time a lesion or gap forms at the
wound site that prevents their regrowth
necessary to restore function.
To address this complex problem, the
research team at RCSI's TERG and the
SFI Advanced Materials and Bioengineering
Research (AMBER) Centre at
Trinity College Dublin developed an implantable,
electroconductive 3D printed
scaffold that can be placed directly into
the injury site, bridging the gap.
Prof. O'Brien, who is also deputy director
of AMBER, sees the implant as a new
approach. " Bridging the lesion with an
electroconductive biomaterial designed
to mimic the structure of the spinal cord,
combined with the application of electrical
stimulation, may help injured neurons
regrow their axons and reconnect to
restore function, " he says, adding that,
" No such platform exists to date. "
n Promising Results
When electrical stimulation is applied
to the implant, it can convey that electrical
signal to boost the regrowth of the injured
axons. At the same time, the scaffolding
and channels of the implant are designed
to act as a bridge and direct the axons to
grow back in the correct formation.
When the researchers put the implant
to the test in the lab, they saw promising
results.
" We could see that when we applied
electrical stimulation for a week to neurons
growing on this scaffold, they developed
long healthy extensions called neurites. In
the body, this kind of growth would be a
key step towards repair and recovery after
an injury, " says Liam Leahy, first author of
the study and a PhD candidate at RCSI.
n Guiding the Research
The RCSI and AMBER researchers
teamed up with the Irish Rugby FootFreeze-dried
longitudinally
aligned
matrix
Pyrrole
Axonal tracts modeled as
cylindrical channels
Carbon
Electrode
3D printed
polycaprolactone
scaffold
Electroconductive
polypyrrole/
polycaprolactone
scaffold
Collagen IV/fibronectinfunctionalized
scaffold
Neuron
Well
Plate
Agarose
Salt
Bridge
Electrostimulation via electroconductive scaffold drives neutrite outgrowth. (Credit: Materials Today, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2024.07.015)
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Medical Design Briefs, October 2024

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Medical Design Briefs - October 2024

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