Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 39: Cell adhesion, mechanics and migration I (Joint session BP, CPP)

CPP 39.10: Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 12:30–12:45, H 1058

Biomechanics of the Spinal Cord — •David E. Koser and Kristian Franze — Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

In cell physiology and pathology mechanical signaling plays an important role. Many cell types, including central nervous system cells, respond to the mechanical cues in their environment. Yet, in spinal cord, data on tissue stiffness are sparse and therefore the mechanical environment is unknown. To fill this gap, we conducted atomic force microscopy indentation and tensile measurements on acutely isolated mouse spinal cord tissue sectioned along the three major anatomical planes (transverse, coronal and sagittal planes), and correlated local mechanical properties with the underlying cellular structures. Our measurements revealed that gray matter is significantly stiffer than white matter irrespective of directionality and force direction. While white matter behaved like a transverse isotropic material on all length scales, gray matter was isotropic at the tissue and anisotropic at the cellular scale. Most importantly, tissue stiffness correlated with axon orientation, cell body size, and cellular in plane proximity, which we combined into a linear model to estimate local central nervous system tissue stiffness. Our study may thus lay the foundation to predicting local tissue stiffness based on histological data, and hence contribute to the understanding of cell behavior in response to mechanical signaling under physiological and pathological conditions.