2023-06-20 12:12:39
Society is increasingly critical of the usefulness and necessity of using laboratory animals for medical research. In addition, researchers are increasingly understanding why an animal experiment has a limited predictive value for the outcome of a follow-up study in patients. This recent awareness has accelerated the search for animal-free models. For example, there are research groups in various places in the world that make mini-organs (also called organoids) from human stem cells. The human brain is so complex in structure and function that making a mini-brain from human stem cells is still in the early stages of development.
Brain biopsy-on-a-chip
Researchers from the Academic Center for Epileptology at Maastricht UMC+, Eindhoven University of Technology and the LUMC have jointly developed a new concept in which brain tissue outside the body remains active. This model consists of three layers. The basis is a printed circuit board (type of chip) with 120 electrodes (contact points). Stem cells were grown on this plate, which grew into a layer of nerve cells through stimulation. The purpose of this is that these nerve cells make contact with the electrodes, so that electrical activity can be measured. Finally, a piece of human brain tissue that was surgically removed during epilepsy treatment was placed directly on the nerve cell layer. The idea was that the nerve cell layer between the brain tissue and the electrodes would function as a biological link and could transmit activity in the brain tissue to the electrodes. This brain biopsy-on-a-chip model was kept in culture and still showed epileptic activity after six days.
Potency
The Maastricht brain researcher Dr. Govert Hoogland sees great opportunities: “New experiments will have to show whether this is a useful model, but our approach potentially provides a clinically relevant alternative to animal-free brain research into epilepsy, for example. It thus opens the way to evaluate new, personalized treatments.”
Cooperation
ZonMw granted a grant for this study Off Road grant to Jean-Philippe Frimat. The program Off Road gives space to young researchers for pioneering, unconventional research. The research concerns (bio)medical and/or health care sciences as research area(s) and the aim is to challenge young (bio)medical and health researchers to achieve new insights and unexpected breakthroughs in medical and/or health research.
Dr. JP Frimat and Dr. R. Luttge, research group Neuro-Nanoscale Engineering, division Microsystems (TU/e), developed the idea and the culture materials. Dr. JP Frimat currently works at the Department of Human Genetics and Neurology (LUMC).
Dr. O. Schijns, Dr. J. Dings, Dr. K. Rijkers and Dr. G. Hoogland, Department of Neurosurgery and School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MUMC+) have applied the idea and the culture materials in human brain tissue. PhD candidate M. Hu and Prof. A. van Maagdenberg, Department of Human Genetics and Neurology (LUMC), have analyzed the measured activity.
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