Journal
ACTA BIOMATERIALIA
Volume 7, Issue 3, Pages 1210-1219Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.actbio.2010.10.018
Keywords
Atomic force microscopy; Neuron; Cell mechanics; Constitutive modeling; Finite elements
Funding
- US Army Research Office through the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies [DAAD-19-02-D0002]
- Joint Improvised Explosive Devices Defeat Organization [W911NF-07-1-0035]
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Biomechanics
- Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees (Universite Paris-Est, France)
- Singapore-MIT Alliance
- Interdisciplinary Research Group on Infectious Diseases at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology
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This study presents experimental results and computational analysis of the large strain dynamic behavior of single neurons in vitro with the objective of formulating a novel quantitative framework for the biomechanics of cortical neurons. Relying on the atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique, novel testing protocols are developed to enable the characterization of neural soma deformability over a range of indentation rates spanning three orders of magnitude, 10, 1, and 0.1 mu m s(-1). Modified spherical AFM probes were utilized to compress the cell bodies of neonatal rat cortical neurons in load, unload, reload and relaxation conditions. The cell response showed marked hysteretic features, strong non-linearities, and substantial time/rate dependencies. The rheological data were complemented with geometrical measurements of cell body morphology, i.e. cross-diameter and height estimates. A constitutive model, validated by the present experiments, is proposed to quantify the mechanical behavior of cortical neurons. The model aimed to correlate empirical findings with measurable degrees of (hyper)elastic resilience and viscosity at the cell level. The proposed formulation, predicated upon previous constitutive model developments undertaken at the cortical tissue level, was implemented in a three-dimensional finite element framework. The simulated cell response was calibrated to the experimental measurements under the selected test conditions, providing a novel single cell model that could form the basis for further refinements. (C) 2010 Acts Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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