Microchip imbedded with brain cells

The Canadian Press


Date: Wednesday Aug. 11, 2010 9:14 AM ET

TORONTO — It seems like the stuff of science fiction, but Canadian researchers have created a microchip embedded with brain cells that allows them to "listen in" as the neurons communicate with each other.
This brain-on-a-chip will make it possible to test drugs for a number of neurological conditions in a much quicker, efficient and accurate way, said principal researcher Naweed Syed, head of cell biology and anatomy at the University of Calgary.

The so-called neurochip -- a millimetre-square marriage of the electronic and organic -- is a big step forward on a previous chip produced by Syed's group that used brain cells from snails, which are four to 10 times larger than human neurons. "This particular idea originates from our earlier finding a few years ago whereby we were the first team in the world to develop the first bionic hybrid," he said Tuesday from Calgary. "And what it meant was that you could now have brain cells that could talk to an electronic device and then the electronic device could talk back to the brain cells."

While this prototype biochip allowed the researchers to pick up the "talking bit," it wasn't refined enough to let them tune in to the underlying "chatter" that went on among brain cells. "So now we can detect it," said Syed, explaining that "talk" and "chatter" are metaphors for the electrical signals that pass between neurons.
Brain cells communicate with each other through electrical and chemical messages that cause them to either be excited or to relax. Electrical messages, for instance, take a pathway on the neuron's surface known as an ion channel -- a component of the brain cell that is critical when it comes to drug testing.

In the next few months, the team plans to begin drug testing using their tiny device embedded with a network of brain cells surgically removed from patients with epilepsy. "Now when we can get this cell, we can put it on our chip and then we can record ion-channel activity, but also find the best drug that will block seizures in that particular individual's cells," he said.

The research, conducted with the National Research Council and published online in the journal Biomedical Devices, could also speed up the search for drugs to treat such neurological diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The brain-on-a-chip could also help drug companies more easily isolate compounds that would provide the next generation of pain killers or medications that could control addictions, Syed suggested. "So I think it opens up the possibility of exploring brain cell function at a much higher resolution than has ever been done before."