ABSTRACT
Reconstruction of gray and white matter defects in the brain is especially difficult after large lesions or in the chronic situation, where an injury has occurred sometime previously [1-3]. In addition to neural death, there is demyelination, rejection or aberrant sprouting of injured axons, glial/minengeal scarring, and often progressive tissue cavitations. In these circumstances, there is a need for cell replacement and some form of neural tissue engineering to develop scaffolds that facilitate reconstruction and restore continuity across the traumatized region [4-9]. Among various scaffolds useful for sustained three-dimensional growth of neural cells, porous nanofiber composites have shown great potential to mimic the natural extracellular matrix (ECM) in terms of structure, porosity, and chemical composition. Thus, these nanofibers must be adequately processed to obtain a porous matrix of suitable morphology [10-12]. Electrospinning is the most effective method which has recently established the reputation for its capability to produce nanofiber composite scaffolds, and is counted as a new addition to the conventional techniques (e.g., phase separation, and self-assembly) [13-16]. In electrospinning process, a high voltage is applied to a polymer solution that is pumped to a spinneret facing an earthed target (collector). Upon reaching a critical voltage, the surface tension of the polymer at the spinning tip is counterbalanced by localized charges generated by the electrostatic force, and the droplet elongates and stretches into a Taylor cone where a continuous jet is ejected [17-20].
