Tech

Mini caps can measure activity in lab-grown minibrains


Until now, scientists have not been able to study organic matter in the brain beyond a few cells. While organics are spherical, the usual tools for studying them — microelectrode array plates, which contain electrodes for measuring electrical activity — are planar.

This new microcap, created by a team from Johns Hopkins University, can wrap around a brain organoid, allowing researchers to record 3D audio from its entire surface. This more detailed information can help us better understand how the brain works. One use is to monitor how neurons communicate during drug testing.

The microcapsules, described in a paper published in Scientific advance today, are soft, flexible, transparent polymer shells containing gold wire and contact pads. When placed in a cellular medium, the microcap begins to swell and close around the organoid, which is half a millimeter in size.

In addition to helping researchers monitor organics, the technique could offer a cheaper, more ethical alternative to animal testing to ensure that chemicals are safe for humans. humans and does not cause brain development problems, said David Gracias, a Johns Hopkins chemical and biomolecular engineer and one of the study’s authors.

“A lot of chemicals have been linked to brain diseases, but there’s no easy way to screen for them,” he said. “Screening a chemical can cost up to a million dollars because the cost of the animals and ethical concerns are there as well.”

This process, inspired by microchips, can create caps that can be customized to fit looser or tighter around different sized organoids, meaning they can measure electrical activity. in organoids at different stages of development.

After proving that the cap works for an organoid, the team is planning to scale up the test, creating an assembly line of 100 organoids to run the tests in parallel. They could be connected to microchips or other organics in the future. Their colleagues in brain science could also use connected organoids to screen for drugs and potential therapies for autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases.

“Many people believe that the brain is the final frontier that we do not yet understand,” says Gracias. “We thought about connecting them to the computer and to each other — if you can make a minibrain, you can connect it to another one. It’s very interesting.”



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