Hydrogels lend a healing hand
Researchers have combined a hydrogel material with transplanted neural stem cells to grow brain tissue.
Brain tissue does not have the same regenerative capacity as other tissues in our body, for example skin, especially when there is a loss of brain parenchyma (the functional tissue in the brain). Developing ways to promote neuronal tissue growth is desired to treat parenchymal defects following traumatic brain injuries and diseases including cancer. A team of researchers at Hokkaido University (Sapporo, Japan) have engineered a hydrogel that provides an effective scaffold for neuronal tissue growth, reporting encouraging results in their mouse model study.
