Author name: Matthew T. Dearing

It might not be immediately obvious how research developments in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS — or, Lou Gehrig’s Disease) would be appropriate to follow here on Neuron News. However, this author has a personal family member currently dealing with the devastating disease, so we’ve been personally reviewing the progress in the field. And, with a little trivial forward thinking, there is an important connection with the advancement of neurotechnology.

Yesterday, a collaboration between Columbia and Harvard Universities announced in Science a fabulous new development that offers promise in the short-term discovery of drugs as well as longer term neuro-therapeutic technologies.

The key problem with ALS patients is that motor neurons–particularly those affecting function in breathing and swallowing–degenerate and die off for unknown reasons. So, the general idea of this research program is to develop a technique to take skins cells of a patient and convert them into stem cells, or the “universal cell” that can potentially turn itself into any other cell given just the right biochemical nudge. Now, with a vast supply of genetically appropriate stem cells that will agree with the personal biology of the patient, convert them into motor neurons and implant them into regions of the body to integrate into neural systems that have been severely degraded by the disease.

This is certainly an exciting development for nearing potential therapies for ALS, although real clinical progress is likely still many years away. If you know of anyone affected by ALS or are interested in supporting the research, please thoroughly read the articles referenced below and consider a donation to The ALS Association.

In addition, this research provides experimental evidence of a new technique developed just last Fall called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. This is a very important fundamental technological advance that should guide the future of neurotechnologies.

Specifically, if neuroprosthetic devices are to be successfully integrated into the nervous system of a human being, it seems reasonable that the genetic make-up of the neurons living on the implanted device should compatible, if not identical, to the genetics of the host neurons. There might be unrealized neuro-communication factors that are influenced by genetic coding, and a fully successful device might need to be grown using neurons developed directly from the human host.

“Harvard-Columbia Team Creates Neurons from ALS Patient’s Skin Cells” :: CUMC News :: July 31, 2008 :: [ READ CUMC Press Release ]

“Stem Cell Breakthrough in ALS Research” :: ScienceNOW Daily News :: July 31, 2008 :: [ READ ]

“Stem cell technique is ‘significant advance'” :: Telegraph.co.uk :: August 1, 2008 :: [ READ ]

EmaxHealth :: [ READ SUMMARY OF MEDIA COVERAGE ]

Visualize a computer chip for a moment… it’s a “flat”, 2-dimensional piece of electronics that does some fancy electron dance somewhere within the green-toned plastic. Now, visualize what a neurological computer chip might look like… how about we start with the same flat, green-toned plastic electrical processing unit and toss on a bunch of living neural cells scrambled all over the surface.

This sort of technological device–which is not entirely science fiction–is this idea of a two-dimensional, cultured neuron network interfaced with a microfabricated electrical circuit. This system in no way resembles the network structuring seen in the human brain, so the first immediate question would be to ask why would this living, 2-D neuron network successfully electrically interface with the brain?

Well, that is a good question… but this 2-D world was (and still is) a reasonable starting point for developing the technology. In fact, because the 2-D world is still an important system for developing merged devices composed of electrical circuits and living networked neurons, developing an understanding of the fundamental neuron network function–in two dimensions–is still critical and valuable for neurotechnological research.

But, the brain is still in three dimensions, so advancing the technology to grow cultured neuron networks in controlled ways in 3-D is quite exciting. With a current published article inNature Methods, researchers from the University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have begun some initial work on controlling the cultured growth of neurons in three dimensions along the bumps of blobs of colloidal crystals.

Micron-sized colloidal particles (i.e., really tiny balls made of clear plastic) are interesting for patterning neuron networks, because there has been a great deal of work on learning how to manipulate these objects using focused laser light called optical tweezers. If the wavelength of the laser beam is selected appropriately, then the living neurons will not absorb the wavelength and heat up and die. So, additional modifications to the underlying colloidal matrix could be made to the system while the neurons were growing and interconnecting along the 3-D lattice.

“Colloidal crystals make better neural networks” :: Ars Technica :: July 28, 2008 :: [ READ ]

“Colloid-guided assembly of oriented 3D neuronal networks” :: Nature Methods :: published online July 20, 2008 :: (doi:10.1038/nmeth.1236) [ READ ABSTRACT ]