Chinese researchers develop cocktail hydrogel for brain injury therapy

BEIJING -- A group of Chinese researchers has developed a cocktail hydrogel that can promote the regeneration of the neurovascular unit and repair damaged brain tissue, providing an important theoretical basis and novel strategies for cell replacement therapy for cortical brain injuries.

Human neural progenitor cell (NPC) transplantation exhibits great potential in traumatic brain injury treatment. However, it faces challenges such as a low cell survival rate, unclear differentiation lineage, and low functional integration efficiency.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health developed the new cocktail hydrogel, which exhibits a three-dimensional scaffold structure with biomimetic properties.

According to a recent paper published in the Journal of Advanced Research, this material can simulate the biochemical and mechanical environment of the natural extracellular matrix, significantly enhancing the adhesion, survival and lineage-specific differentiation of human NPCs.

The biomimetic structures constructed by the hydrogel, working with the bioactive microenvironment, provide sustained neurogenic induction signals when mimicking the characteristics of brain tissue, thereby efficiently driving the transformation of human NPCs into functional interneurons -- a pivotal type of neuron that enables advanced human activities.

The study also found that the hydrogel can help reconstruct the microstructure of the neurovascular unit, significantly improve the local immune and metabolic microenvironment of an injury site, and promote the survival of human NPCs and their transformation into cortical interneuron lineage, thus reshaping the structure of damaged brain tissue and partially restoring neural conduction function.