Abstract

3D Mesoscale Structures as Bioelectronic Interfaces to Cortical Spheroids

John Rogers, Simpson/Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University

Three-dimensional (3D), sub-millimeter-scale collections of neural cells, known as cortical spheroids and organoids, are of rapidly growing importance in neuroscience research due to their ability to reproduce complex features of brain architecture, function and organization in vitro. Despite their great potential for studies of neurodevelopment, neurological disease modeling and evolution, these miniaturized, fragile 3D living biosystems cannot be examined easily using conventional methods for neuromodulation, sensing and manipulation.   This talk describes an unusual 3D neurotechnology platform that can be tailored with shapes, sizes and complex geometries that match those of individual organoids/spheroids and small collections of them, sometimes referred to as assembloids. Systematic studies demonstrate various electrical, thermal, chemical and optical modes of operation that can be supported by these frameworks, including examples of their use in monitoring electrophysiological behaviors across the surfaces of healthy human stem cell derived cortical spheroids and in examining processes of neuroregeneration between lobes of transected assembloids formed from pairs of spheroids.