Scaffold of 60um pitch plated with Hippocampal Neurons

This tiled image, originally captured using the Core Facilities LSM 710, and reconstructed using Imaris reconstruction software, features primary rat hippocampl neurons plated onto a pHEMA (polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate) scaffold, previously treated with polylysine. The cell bodies are seen in blue, while the neuronal processes are visualized in yellow. The 6 layer pHEMA structures, that have a rod width of 10 um and a spacing between rods of 60 um, were created using a direct-write assembly setup in Professor Jennifer Lewis' lab. In this study, after 7 days in vitro, cells were fixed and stained to study neuronal outgrowth response to scaffolds of four different architectures. In this case, the rod width was kept constant, while the spacing was varied from 30-80 um. Cell distribution and process/scaffold interactions were analyzed.