‘Dancing’ Molecules Spur Healing in Spinal Cord Tissue

 Do we have ANY INNOVATIVE thinkers in stroke that will look at this and say;'

 'Maybe this could work for stroke'! I bet we have shit for brains that can't think AND WILL DO NOTHING!

We already have these brain representatives:

• Brain on a chip (9 posts to October 2012)
• brain organoid (8 posts to May 2018)
• artificial brains (4 posts to February 2015)

‘Dancing’ Molecules Spur Healing in Spinal Cord Tissue

Under a fluorescence microscope at Northwestern University, a sphere of human spinal cord tissue — about 3 mm across, roughly the diameter of a mouse spinal cord — erupted with green light. It had been stained with a calcium-sensitive dye that lights up living neurons and their extending fibers. This green light provided unmistakable visual proof of neurites streaming outward from the tissue’s injured surface and into a synthetic gel, where they were growing in organized, parallel structures.

Fluorescence microscopy reveals axons (green) extending from an injured spinal cord organoid after treatment with the supramolecular therapy.

That sphere of spinal cord tissue was a spinal cord organoid — a three-dimensional, miniaturized tissue model grown in a dish from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to recapitulate key features of an actual organ. This one had been differentiated over 24 weeks into a range of spinal cord cell types: neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, and Schwann cells.

The Northwestern team also incorporated microglia — the brain and spinal cord’s resident immune cells — by coaxing iPSC-derived progenitors to infiltrate the organoid. The result was an immune-competent model capable of mounting an inflammatory response to injury.

Contusion from a mechanical impactor produces diffuse cell death (red), simulating the blunt-force trauma behind real-world spinal cord injuries.

Then, to make the organoid useful, the team injured it — either slicing it with a scalpel to model surgical hemisection or crushing it with a mechanical impactor to deliver the kind of compressive contusion that causes most real-world spinal cord injuries.

Article Key Points

Synthetic peptide molecules show promise in regenerating spinal cord tissue by promoting axon growth and reducing scarring. This innovative therapy, tested on human spinal cord organoids, could potentially advance treatments for spinal cord injuries.