Investigating the Physiological Use of an Organ-on-a-Chip Device through the Design and Fabrication of a micro-Electrical Blood-Brain Barrier (μE-BBB) System
Aging is considered the main risk factor for various neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Aging is associated with an increase in neuroinflammation, which is a significant contributor to cognitive impairment observed in these age-related neurodegenerative diseases. However, studying brain behavior remains a challenge due to the complex nature of isolating brain tissue from an organism. Modeling the brain allows for further study of these neurodegenerative diseases. Organ-on-a- chip (OoC), a system containing engineered or natural tissues grown within microfluidic chips, has emerged as a promising tool for mimicking human physiology in a controlled microenvironment. A healthy blood-brain barrier (BBB) is essential for maintaining brain tissue, while disruption of the BBB results in toxins and immune cells entering the central nervous system. This impairment is associated with neurodegenerative diseases like AD and PD. Here, a brain-on-a-chip system has been created to mimic the human BBB. Results were validated through light microscopic imaging of the triple co-culture of cells associated with the BBB, namely, microglial, endothelial, and astrocyte cells, in the device. The development of this device can be an effective platform for studying neurodegeneration and testing new therapeutics
