Brain Organ Chips Offer Novel Approach to Studying Drug and Disease Effects

The last line of defense

Astrocyte and pericyte cells play an important supporting role in the BBB, serving as essentially a toxin-filtering last line of defense. Collectively, they are know as the neurovascular unit.

The research team set out to clarify the various ways in which BBB cells work with the brain. To do this, they used novel microfluidically linked Organ Chips: they allowed a glimpse into how the use of drugs like methamphetamines are able to disrupt this natural process of brain function. 

The chips allowed the scientists to not only mimic the effects of certain drugs on the brain, but more importantly observe brain functionality in a new way which "unlike today’s research on Organ Chips [which] is focused on trying to pack more cell types onto each chip to approximate the complexity of whole organs, ...[allowed the research team to do] the opposite and divide one organ onto multiple chips,” shared first author Ben Maoz, Ph.D., a former Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute and current Assistant Professor at Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Blood vessels and the brain

Their work in looking at the bare essential of the NVU and BBB interaction in their research revealed a clear message: blood vessel health is directly linked to how the brain functions.

Kit Parker, Ph.D., a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute and the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), was equally enthusiastic in citing the significance of the research study:

“The big breakthrough here is that not only have we created a new model for studying the effects of drugs on the human brain, along the way we teased out the communication networks between cells in a way that never could have been done with traditional brain research techniques,” she said, adding, “We are seeing here an unanticipated level of complexity that raises the bar in terms of what it will mean to successfully map the brain’s connectome.” 

Their research was published in journal Nature Biotechnology in an article titled "A linked organ-on-chip model of the human neurovascular unit reveals the metabolic coupling of endothelial and neuronal cells."

Via: Harvard University