Building Blocks for Bottom-Up Neural Tissue Engineering: Tools for In Vitro Assembly and Interrogation of Neural Circuits

Bottom-up tissue engineering approaches provide unique opportunities to investigate the formation and dynamics of neural circuits. Given the fact that spatial organization of cells with specific morphological, electrophysiological, and biochemical properties is a defining feature of neural circuits, bottom-up strategies are a promising tool in gaining mechanistic understanding of the role of spatial organization of cell types. Moreover, by controlling the cell density and matrix composition, structures assembled in vitro can have significantly lower light scattering, allowing high-resolution, high-speed optical imaging not possible in intact tissues. These features of bottom-up assembly approaches make them an attractive model system for probing molecular function in disease models, and also potentially in identifying the origin of emergent properties in neural circuits.