For nearly a decade, Diane Hoffman-Kim's lab has made cortical spheroids – basically working mini-brains.
Hoffman-Kim, an associate professor of neuroscience and engineering and a faculty affiliate of the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science, and her tissue engineering teams have used these three-dimensional cell cultures to study human brain injury and stroke. Currently, the team is using them to study glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer. Because of their versatility and novelty, cortical spheroids have captured the imagination of scientists and the public – witness this story in WIRED magazine.
In new work, published August 19 in PLOS One, Hoffman-Kim and a team of Brown biomedical engineers used for the first time cortical spheroids to test the effects of compression injuries, which cause brain damage that takes minutes, days or months to surface.
Visit the Carney Institute for Brain Science website for the full story.