Electrical Stimulation Promotes Stem Cell Neural Differentiation in Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Nerve injuries and neurodegenerative disorders remain serious challenges, owing to the poor treatment outcomes of in situ neural stem cell regeneration. The most promising treatment for such injuries and disorders is stem cell-based therapies, but there remain obstacles in controlling the differentiation of stem cells into fully functional neuronal cells. Various biochemical and physical approaches have been explored to improve stem cell-based neural tissue engineering, among which electrical stimulation has been validated as a promising one both in vitro and in vivo. Here, we summarize the most basic waveforms of electrical stimulation and the conductive materials used for the fabrication of electroactive substrates or scaffolds in neural tissue engineering. Various intensities and patterns of electrical current result in different biological effects, such as enhancing the proliferation, migration, and differentiation of stem cells into neural cells. Moreover, conductive materials can be used in delivering electrical stimulation to manipulate the migration and differentiation of stem cells and the outgrowth of neurites on two- and three-dimensional scaffolds. Finally, we also discuss the possible mechanisms in enhancing stem cell neural differentiation using electrical stimulation. We believe that stem cell-based therapies using biocompatible conductive scaffolds under electrical stimulation and biochemical induction are promising for neural regeneration.

Silicon Diode based Flexible and Bioresorbable Optoelectronic Interfaces for Selective Neural Excitation and Inhibition

“…When implementing in biological systems, the device platform serves a tool to optically and non-genetically interrogate neural activities, with possible utilities in drug screening 74 , brain-machine interfaces 75, 76 and prosthesis 77 . These wirelessly generated electrical signals can also possibly interrogate neurological disorders 78 , guide stem cell migration, modulate progenitor cell development 79, 80 and promote cell growth and regeneration 81, 82 . Additionally, the junction-dependent photovoltage could target electro-sensitive designer cells expressing voltage-dependent receptors for more cell-specific stimulations 83 .…”

Conductive Collagen-Based Hydrogel Combined With Electrical Stimulation to Promote Neural Stem Cell Proliferation and Differentiation

“…ES plays an important role in inducing appropriate stem cell responses and has great potential to modulate stem cell proliferation, self-renewal, and differentiation. Recent studies have confirmed that the differentiation of cultured NSCs into neurons is directly related to the regulation of ES (Cheng et al, 2021). ES may be directly involved in the up-regulated expression of L-type voltage-gated calcium channels (L-VGCCs), which are essential for the activation of Ca 2+ -dependent pathways through Ca 2+ influx (Wu et al, 2019).…”

In situ 3D printing of liquid metal-hydrogel hybrid for multifunctional soft bioelectronics and devices

“…Taking advantage of this leakage currents as well as the intrinsic high e ciency of hydrogel in ionic transport with biological tissue, this LM-hydrogel hybrid here can be used as electrical stimulation electrode with safe, wet and biocompatible hydrogel interface. In this section, we demonstrate the capacity of this hybrid for in vitro electrical stimulation of cells, which is of great value in tissue engineering 28,29 , neural regeneration 30,31 and other medical therapy 32,33 . Fig.…”