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A recent study in the journal highlighted a new technology that can allow for a better understanding of brain development and disease.
Co-led by Shirley Ryan 外网天堂 physician-scientist Colin Franz, MD, PhD, the research facilitated a more comprehensive study of human neural organoids, or “mini brains,” which are millimeter-sized, lab-grown, human brain-like tissues. Before this new technology, scientists could only record and stimulate activity from a small fraction of an organoid’s neurons, meaning they would miss network-wide dynamics that give rise to coordinated rhythms, information processing and the complex patterns of activity that define brain function.
“This advance is really about building the right tools for a new class of biological models,” said Dr. Franz, who led the organoid development for the study. “Human neural organoids are living, 3-D tissues that contain active neural circuits communicating through electrical signals. However, the state-of-the-art instruments we use to study them were originally designed for flat layers of cells and do not interface well with organoids that are spherical and three dimensional.”
This new technology overcomes this limitation using a soft, 3-D electronic framework that wraps around an organoid like a breathable, high-tech mesh. Rather than sampling select regions, it delivers near-complete, shape-conforming coverage with hundreds of miniaturized electrodes across almost the entire organoid. By moving from localized probing to true whole-network mapping, the work brings organoid research closer to capturing how real human brains develop, function and even fail.
“As organoids become a growing priority for NIH initiatives and for industry drug development efforts, technologies like this will be essential for turning these sophisticated tissue models into practical platforms for understanding disease, testing therapies and advancing clinical neuroscience,” said Dr. Franz.
Dr. Franz collaborated with John Rogers, PhD, the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University.
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