Diffusional Landscapes for the Study of Neural Differentiation

用于神经分化研究的扩散景观

• 批准号: 1145949
• 负责人: Scott Collins
• 金额: $ 31万
• 依托单位: University of Maine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1145949&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Diffusional; Landscapes; Study; Neural; Differentiation

During early development of the central nervous system, the global landscape and concentration of chemical species within the spinal cord serve to direct neuron differentiation and development. The chemical constituency and concentrations of myriad chemical stimulants within the spinal cord signals both the type of neural cells that will develop as well as provide a "trail of breadcrumbs" to direct the precise synaptic connections to other neurons. This research presents a microsystem that generates specific concentration profiles of multiply relevant chemical species to study the development and differentiation of neurons. Using micro and nanofabrication, a microsystem will be designed, fabricated, characterized, and used to generate chemical profiles of known chemicals that affect spinal cord development. An anthology of four mouse spinal cord chemical mediators will be studied: sonic hedgehog (Shh), bone morphogenic protein (BMP), retinoic acid (RA), and noggin, and the spatial and temporal histological distributions of resulting neural cells will be mapped to the imposed chemical mediator concentrations. The advantage of this approach is that cells can be studied in biologically relevant environments without the introduction of the myriad unknown and uncontrolled parameters found in vivo. This project will support the education and laboratory research training of both graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Maine in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary research project involving biological, micro/nano fabrication, and engineering methods in instrumentation and techniques. The project will also be highlighted in UMaine's "Consider Engineering" summer program for high school students and in several undergraduate and graduate level courses to introduce science & engineering initiates to interdisciplinary research. The microsystem will be extended within these programs/courses to encompass applications involving: cognition models, artificial intelligence, biocomputing, and neural networks.

在中枢神经系统的早期发展过程中，脊髓内化学物种的全球景观和浓度可指导神经元分化和发育。 脊髓内的无数化学兴奋剂的化学成分和浓度都会信号，这两种神经细胞的类型都将发展出来，并提供“面包屑的痕迹”，以将精确的突触连接引导到其他神经元。 这项研究提出了一个微系统，该微系统产生了倍数相关化学物种的特定浓度谱，以研究神经元的发展和分化。 使用微型和纳米化，将设计，制造，表征和用于产生影响脊髓发育的已知化学物质的化学谱。 将研究四种小鼠脊髓化学介质的选集：声波刺猬（SHH），骨形态发生蛋白（BMP），视黄酸（RA）和Noggin，以及所得神经细胞的空间和时间组织学分布将被映射到刺激的化学介质浓度上。这种方法的优点是可以在生物学相关的环境中研究细胞，而无需在体内引入无数未知和不受控制的参数。 该项目将在缅因州大学的研究生和本科生的教育和实验室研究培训中，包括一个合作，多学科研究项目，涉及仪器和技术领域的生物学，微/纳米制造以及工程方法。该项目还将在Umaine的“考虑工程”夏季计划中为高中生以及几个本科生和研究生级课程中的课程强调，以引入科学与工程学的跨学科研究。这些程序/课程将扩展微系统，以包含涉及的应用程序：认知模型，人工智能，生物计算和神经网络。