Guidance of spiral ganglion neurons over 3 mm usin

Authors: Shaden Khalifa Mats Ulfendahl Per Björk Tommy Schönberg Christian Vieider Eric Scarfone

Publish Date: 2014/03/11

Volume: 11, Issue: 3, Pages: 187-194

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Abstract

Despite considerable advances in neural prosthetics there are still few clinical devices capable of effectively compensating for the loss of a physiological function By far the most successful to date are cochlear implants which can restore the auditory function in patients with severe sensorineural impairment These implants have electrode arrays that directly stimulate the remaining neurons and several strategies are applied to encourage neurons to interact intimately with the electrodes Integration of the residual neurons into the circuits can be aided by appropriate micropatterning on the electrodes’ surfaces to guide the regenerating neurons Here we describe experiments revealing key features of the interface between auditory cell cultures and surface patterning In the presented study linear regenerative outgrowth of spiral ganglion axons occurred over distances of several hundred micrometers in the presence of extracellular protein cues placed precisely on surfaces by microcontact printing The protein pattern guided the outgrowth of spiral ganglion neurons along interconnected networks of nonneuronal cells Highprecision alignment of axons with no branching or deviation was influenced by but not dependent upon the presence of nonglial cells The findings show that micropatterning provides a versatile robust system that can not only guide the outgrowth of individual neurons but also regulate the orientation of diverse cell types in culture

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