Illustration of a nerve cell KTSDESIGN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy
Artificial nerve cells made from biocompatible materials have been made in a lab for the first time. The innovation may one day be used in synthetic tissues to repair organs such as the heart or the eyes.
at the University of Oxford and his colleagues devised a synthetic material that can act in a similar way to a human neuron.
Made from hydrogel, the artificial neurons are about 0.7 millimetres across – about 700 times wider than a human neuron, but similar to giant axons found in squid. They…
