Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Electrical Stimulation Using Conductive Polymer Polypyrrole Counters Reduced Neurite Outgrowth Of Primary Prefrontal Cortical Neurons From Nrg1-Ko And Disc1-Li Mice, Qingsheng Zhang, Dorna Esrafilzadeh, Jeremy Micah Crook, Robert M. I Kapsa, Elise M. Stewart, Eva Tomaskovic-Crook, Gordon G. Wallace, Xu-Feng Huang

Australian Institute for Innovative Materials - Papers

Deficits in neurite outgrowth, possibly involving dysregulation of risk genes neuregulin-1 (NRG1) and disrupted in schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) have been implicated in psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia. Electrical stimulation using conductive polymers has been shown to stimulate neurite outgrowth of differentiating human neural stem cells. This study investigated the use of the electroactive conductive polymer polypyrrole (Ppy) to counter impaired neurite outgrowth of primary pre-frontal cortical (PFC) neurons from NRG1-knock out (NRG1-KO) and DISC1-locus impairment (DISC1-LI) mice. Whereas NRG1-KO and DISC1-LI exhibited reduced neurite length and number of neurite branches compared to wild-type controls, this was not apparent for cultures on …