Now in our 13th year of bringing you beautiful imagery from biomedical science every day

Search the archive of over 4000 images

Building a Brain
15 July 2015

Building a Brain

The human brain still harbours many mysteries, and unravelling the workings of this intricate organ is a major scientific challenge. One means of tackling the problem is to build artificial systems, based on neural tissues, to help model the brain’s responses to different stresses. Shown is a recent example, based on a scaffold of collagen and silk (in blue), onto which rat neurons (in orange) are attached, grow, and connect to each other. Dropping weights onto this structure, to mimic a blow to the skull, demonstrated that this bioengineered brain responds in a similar way to that of injured human patients; this suggests that it could be a useful system for studying the effects of traumatic brain injury. Increasing the complexity of the model, by adding different types of brain cells, will help develop ever-better tools in which to investigate the behaviour of our most intriguing organ.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Search The Archive

Submit An Image

Follow on Tumblr

Follow on Instagram

What is BPoD?

BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

Read More

BPoD is also available in Catalan at www.bpod.cat with translations by the University of Valencia.