Lifelike 3D-Printed ‘Training Brains’ React Like Real Organs

 With ANY BRAINS AT ALL in our stroke medical 'professionals' we could do research that tells us exactly what interventions work to stop the neuronal cascade of death in the first week! Putting the brain on a chip with brain organoids and this and we could solve a lot of stroke recovery questions.  But nothing will occur; OUR 'PROFESSIONALS' ARE FUCKING INCOMPETENT! 

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• Brain on a chip (9 posts to October 2012)

Lifelike 3D-Printed ‘Training Brains’ React Like Real Organs

Imagine what brain surgeons could do with a three-dimensional (3D)-printed model of the brain. Not a structural model printed in plastic and uniform throughout, but one that mirrors the heterogeneity of real human brain tissue — its mechanical, thermal, and electromagnetic properties.

Christopher O’ Bryan, PhD, MS

“If somebody has a brain tumor, you could take an MRI of their brain and make a 3D model from it that includes the tumor, and then practice surgery on that model,” said Christopher O’ Bryan, PhD, MS, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri (UM) in Columbia, Missouri. “You could learn how sound, electromagnetic waves, or physical insults interact with the brain to better understand concussions and traumatic brain injury.”

     A scaled-down 3D model of the brain, about 15% of a real brain’s size.

O’Bryan and colleagues in UM’s College of Engineering recently published a study in the journal Materialia describing how the researchers designed a unique 3D printer ink made from a modified polymer — called a photo-crosslinkable poly(vinyl alcohol) methacrylate polymer — and then used it to print a scaled-down 3D model of the brain, about 15% of a real brain’s size. The scientists relied on a method called embedded 3D printing, crosslinking the polymer in a microgel bath, to achieve a model that mimicked the soft tissue and the structural complexities of a real human brain.

How They Did It

To provide a broader picture of why they conducted the study, O’Bryan described his lab’s goals. “The focus areas in our lab include the designing of soft materials, the testing of these materials, and then how to actually manufacture things out of these soft materials. And that’s especially challenging when you take into account that most soft materials are hydrogels and biopolymers which start out in a liquid phase ,” he said.

Researchers used embedded 3D printing, crosslinking the polymer with a gel bath to mimic brain tissue.

The researchers’ embedded 3D printing approach uses “sacrificial support baths,” jelly-like baths, which act as a supportive matrix during the printing phase. “What this allows us to do is to print materials as liquids and keep them as liquids until we’ve completely printed our structure, and then we crosslink the printed structure using heat or UV [ultraviolet] light to make it solid. Then we take it out of the gel bath, and it’s become a soft, deformable structure — meaning it can change shape when a force is applied,” O’Bryan said.