New research could point to additional treatments for people with nerve injuries
Engineers Eunhee Kim and Hongsoo Choi, both of the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, and colleagues first built rectangular robots that were 300 micrometers long. Slender horizontal grooves, about the width of nerve cells’ tendrils that exchange messages with other cells, lined the top.These microrobots were fertile ground for rat nerve cells, the researchers found. As the cells grew, their message-sending axons and message-receiving dendrites neatly followed the robots’ lined grooves.
Once laden with about 100 nerve cells, a microrobot’s objective was to nestle between two separate islands of nerve cells, grown on glass plates, and bridge the gap. Rotating magnetic fields sent the microrobot tumbling pell-mell toward its target. When the microrobot drew close, researchers used a steadier magnetic field to align the bot between the two clusters of cells.
