美国科学家制造三维模型模拟大脑功能

2014-08-26 15:52:13来源：可可英语

　　He said measurements of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that surges in injury, showed that “themore severe the damage, the higher the spike” in glutamate.

　　他说，大脑受伤会导致神经递质谷氨酸激增，而对模型中谷氨酸的测量显示，“受伤越重，激增的峰值越高。”

　　Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a biomedical engineering professor at Columbia who has workedwith Dr. Kaplan on other studies, described the model as a kind of “Lego approach,” a“modular structure” that can be expanded and made more complex.

　　哥伦比亚大学生物医学工程系教授戈尔达娜·乌尼亚克-诺瓦科维奇(Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic)曾与卡普兰在其他研究上有过合作。她称这个模型的建造有点像“乐高用的方法”，是一种“模块结构”，可以扩展成更复杂的形态。

　　“It is the first proof of principle that something like this can be achieved outside of the body,”she said.

　　她说，“这是首次在原理上证明，类似这样的东西可以在体外实现。”

　　Dr. Hickman said future experiments would need to study other cells and regions in the brain. “They’ve set up an architecture so some clever person in the future could then do it,” he said.Dr. Kaplan said his team was working on sustaining the brainlike tissue for six months — andwith human neurons created from stem cells. He plans to add a model of the brain’s vascularsystem, so researchers can study what happens when drugs cross the blood-brain barrier.

　　希克曼表示，还需要有未来的实验来研究大脑的其他细胞和区域。他说，“他们已经建立了一个构架，将来会有聪明人用它来做工作。”卡普兰称，他的研究小组正在努力让这个类似脑的组织存活六个月，还要用上从干细胞生成的人类神经元。他打算加建一个大脑血管系统的模型，让研究人员得以观察当药物通过血脑屏障时会发生什么。

　　Ultimately, he hopes the bioengineered model can be used “to study everything from drugs todisease to surgical effects to electrode implants,” he said. “I mean, the list is endless.”

　　他的最终目标，是让生物工程模型能被用于“所有的研究，从药物，到疾病，到手术效果，再到植入电极，”他说。“我的意思是，可做的研究多得没完没了。”

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