This article
illustrates the way researchers have been able to mimic extracellular matrices
of the brain in or order to provide an environment for neural stem cell
differentiation. The potential of stem cells to differentiate into a variety of
subgroups of neural cells makes stem cell differentiation and transplantation a
promising candidate for neurodegenerative disorder therapies but this is an
extremely complex which is why research on this matter is so important.
Synthetic scaffolds have been made that can direct neural lineage by including
extracellular factors that act on cell fate. This article reviews synthetic
materials developed for neural regeneration in terms of their extracellular
matrix mimicking properties. It is interesting to see how close researchers
have come to replicating neural tissue through the process of stem cell
differentiation which is a process that has been discussed a lot in class as of
recently. The brain is so complex and incredibly
hard to understand so the fact that biomedical engineers are getting so close
to mimicking its functions is almost unbelievable.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2013/bm/c3bm60150a#!divAbstract
