Scientists have made artificial nerve cells from hydrogel. In the future, these cells could be used to repair damaged organs such as eyes.
Being in the lab for the first time artificial nerve cells made that are compatible with human tissues. This technique could be useful in the future to restore the heart or eyes after injury.
Biologist Hagan Bayley of the University of Oxford and his colleagues devised an artificial material that behaves similarly to a human neuron. Neurons, or nerve cells, are the cells of our nervous system. They are the building blocks of the brain. They use electrical signals to transfer information to other parts of the nervous system.
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The artificial neurons are made of hydrogel. They have a diameter of about 0.7 millimeters. That’s about seven hundred times wider than a human neuron, comparable to the giant neuron extensions found in squid. The artificial neurons can be made up to 25 millimeters long. That is comparable to the length of the human optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain.
When you shine light on the artificial neuron, it activates proteins that pump hydrogen ions into the cell. These positively charged particles then move through the neuron to transmit an electrical signal. The speed of this signal was too high to measure, and is likely higher than the speed in natural neurons, Bayley said.
When the charged particles reach the end of the neuron, they cause a signal substance (adenosine triphosphate or ATP) to move from one water droplet to another. In the future, the researchers want to allow the artificial neuron to communicate with another neuron via an ATP signal, just like the neurons in our brain are connected to each other.
Multiple signals at once
The team had seven neurons work together like an artificial nerve. ‘We can send several signals at the same time,’ says Bayley. These signals can have different frequencies so that they do not interfere with each other. This allows different pieces of information to be sent through the “nervous system” along the same route, Bayley says.
The artificial neurons still have a long way to go. Unlike real neurons, the artificial system cannot create new transfer agents. As a result, the neurons only work for a few hours, Bayley says.
Artificial retinas
Physicist Alain Nogaret of the University of Bath in the UK says this technique could play an important role in improving neuroimplants such as artificial retinas within a decade. ‘Mimicking nerve activity in soft materials is an important step towards non-invasive brain-machine interfaces and solutions for neurodegenerative diseases.’
Bayley hopes to eventually use these artificial neurons to deliver different types of drugs into the body at once, in order to treat wounds more quickly and accurately. ‘Using light, we can release drug particles in a desired pattern,’ he says.