Abstract
Nerve diseases including acute injury such as peripheral nerve injury (PNI), spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), and chronic disease like neurodegeneration disease can cause various function disorders of nervous system, such as those relating to memory and voluntary movement. These nerve diseases produce great burden for individual families and the society, for which a lot of efforts have been made. Axonal pathways represent a unidirectional and aligned architecture allowing systematic axonal development within the tissue. Following a traumatic injury, the intricate architecture suffers disruption leading to inhibition of growth and loss of guidance. Due to limited capacity of the body to regenerate axonal pathways, it is desirable to have biomimetic approach that has the capacity to graft a bridge across the lesion while providing optimal mechanical and biochemical cues for tissue regeneration. And for central nervous system injury, one more extra precondition is compulsory: creating a less inhibitory surrounding for axonal growth. Electrospinning is a cost-effective and straightforward technique to fabricate extracellular matrix (ECM)-like nanofibrous structures, with various fibrous forms such as random fibers, aligned fibers, 3D fibrous scaffold and core-shell fibers from a variety of polymers. The diversity and versatility of electrospinning technique, together with functionalizing cues such as neurotrophins, ECM-based proteins and conductive polymers, have gained considerable success for the nerve tissue applications. We are convinced that in the future the stem cell therapy with the support of functionalized electrospun nerve scaffolds could be a promising therapy to cure nerve diseases.
Highlights
Mechanical, thermal, chemical or ischemic factors can lead to damage of the nervous system and impair system functions like memory, cognition, language and voluntary movement [1], which are extremely important for individual lives
neural stem cells (NSCs) were cultured on the random nanofibers, and the results indicated that the cell behaviors, such as attachment and viability, were improved by the immobilized collagen [119]
Current techniques and strategies that may allow for neuronal tissue regeneration or replacement, which is mainly related to electrospinning techniques, were reviewed
Summary
The vertebrate nervous system consists of two main parts: the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS functions as a carrier and interpreter of signals, as well as a generator of excitatory stimuli to the PNS. The five main components of the CNS are brain, spinal cord, optic, olfactory and auditory systems [8], and brain and spinal cord are the most representative parts. The connection between the CNS and peripheral structures is the PNS [12], through which sensory and excitatory signals are transmitted in both directions (from or to the spinal column). The PNS, a collection of nerves, sensory receptors and ganglia outside the CNS, is one of the largest and most complex structures in the body, and most components of which are produced at various stages of the embryonic development
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