After a serious accident or bacterial infection, there can often be very painful or even paralyzing damage to nerves. This damage lasts a while due to how slowly nerves regenerate, if they end up regenerating at all.

A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota, however, has come up with a way to 3D print nerve scaffolds that can encourage nerve regeneration. Their findings were published in Advanced Functional Materials.

Because of how long nerve regeneration takes, researchers are looking for new ways to repair nerve damage. One such method includes taking nerves from a healthy part of the body and grafting them into the damaged part. This is problematic, however, because of the fact that it can be painful on both the donor side and the damaged side of the body. The patient also requires two surgeries for this to happen.

Most recently, however, researchers have begun experimenting with what they call nerve guidance channels, which are essentially bio-compatible cylinders that encourage nerves to grow. These are much more flexible than using nerve grafts, however, they only allow nerves to grow in straight lines.

There is, however, a new method. For these experiments, researchers essentially 3D scanned to view an exposed nerve. They then used these scans to create geometrically complex guidance channels, which essentially acts as bridges between the two ends of a nerve. These guidance channels can fit perfectly into any part of the body, straight or otherwise.

The focus was on nerves that split into two that go into separate parts of the body. These nerves are more complex than linear nerves.

The guidance channels themselves encourage growth because of their shape and due to the chemical makeup of each channel. The scaffolding was implanted with silicone and special types of protein, which were released over a period of three weeks.

The concept isn't yet ready for humans, however, it has been successful on mice. As an idea, however, it certainly seems promising. Researchers plan on using different proteins to encourage growth.

Via: PopSci