Development Of A Miniaturized Bioreactor For Neural Culture And Axon Stretch Growth

Neural interface has been developed to build the channel between human nervous system and peripheral equipment that repair neural function for people who suffer from paralysis. Wherein, the study of new bi-peripheral neural interface has become the hotspot, which mainly culture nerve by neural culture in vitro and mechanical stimulation and induce neural function recovery by electrical stimulation and biological way. Meanwhile, various types of nerve signals was recorded and encoded to control prosthetic movement. Finally, prosthetic signals were delivered to human brain so that these prostheses could be integrated with human body as if they were natural hands.Compared with other cells culture, neural culture in vitro had more serious condition, as well as mechanical stretch for axons needed higher accuracy requirements. Until now, lots of commercial bioreactors in vitro couldn’t meet the above requirements. Therefore, we designed the experimental platform for neural culture and axonal stretch growth, so that it could provide new methods and technology for neural culture, what’s more, it’s the basic premise to investigate potentially bi-directional peripheral neural interface.In this thesis, the experimental platform mainly included the design of a miniaturized bioreactor for neural culture and axon stretch growth and corresponding micro-control platform. Wherein, the bioreactor was aimed to improve the micro-environment of the old bioreactor in vitro by using Solid Works software, and adopting PTFE materials which had good biological compatibility to process for long term culture experiments. Micro-control platform consisted of the mechanical systems and control systems. Control system is mainly for controlling axons stretch, including PC and controller; mechanical system consisted of stepping motor and linear motion table. According to our experimental conditions, the mechanical system and the bioreactor was placed in the CO2 incubator. What’s more, Renishaw XL-80 laser interferometer was used to calibrate the accuracy of the experimental platform, and measured displacements were analyzed by MATLAB software. Results showed that the micro-displacement measurement error of striding 1μm and 2μm could meet the basic requirements of the stretching experiment. Finally, experiments were performed by using Dorsal root ganglia(DRG) neurons isolated from 1-3 days Sprague-Dawley rats. Preliminary produces for axon stretch growth by taking 1μm step every 100 seconds, and got displacement length of three periods ultimately. Results showed that the average of each period met the basic requirements of the stretching experiment, whereas indicated a satisfactory accuracy and repeatability for the implementation of axon stretching.