Fig. 2

Scaffold construction: schematic of the system modeling the behavior of reactive cellular responses of astrocytes migrating from the parenchyma out to the shunt catheter. Astrocytes were injected into an alginate gel scaffold built around the distal portion of a clinical grade ventricular catheter. Scaffold preparation begins with securing a restraining polystyrene dam around the ventricular portion of the shunt catheter (a). The dam is sealed using low-melting point agarose (b). Alginate and crosslinkers are injected into the space around the catheter (c) and cured for 30 min (d). The scaffolds are then injected with a cell suspension resulting in a density of astrocytes similar to that observed in rat cortical tissue (e). The dam is removed (f) and incubation begins permitting cell migration through the scaffold and onto the catheter