Astrocytes are glial cells that tiles the mammalian central nervous system. It serves a substantial function in the CNS and the progress of reactive astrogliosis is related to multiple CNS traumatic injuries and diseases. Recent years, the interest in understanding the trigger and the mechanism of reactive astrogliosis has increased and scientists have started to study reactive astrogliosis in vitro on scaffolds like electrospun polymer nanofibers. If it could be understood how various properties of the scaffold can affect reactive astrogliosis, we can then build scaffolds that are able guide/control the process of reactive astrogliosis and implanting such scaffolds in diseased brain tissue would become new treatment methods. In this project/thesis, effects of the orientation of electrospun nanofibers and the nanofibers of different materials on reactive astrogliosis have been studied. Results found that the orientation of the fiber scaffold can affect the extent of reactive astrogliosis and fiber diameter is a dominant factor than the chemical properties of the polymer. However, further study analyzing the effects other chemical and physical properties of the polymer scaffold on reactive astrogliosis needs to be done to fully understand the role of polymer nanoscale/microscale fiber scaffold in reactive astrogliosis.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Biomedical Engineering
Subject (authority = LCSH)
Topic
Astrocytes
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Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD
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School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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