Researchers from the Wyss Institute and the Disease Biophysics Group at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) modeled three regions of the brain most affected by schizophrenia - the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. “It’s about the different types of cells and the connectivity between different regions of the brain. When modeling the brain, you need to be able to recapitulate that connectivity because there are many different diseases that attack those connections” said Ben Maoz, co-first author of the paper and a Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Disease Biophysics Group in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

The researchers began by characterizing the cell composition, protein expression, metabolism, and electrical activity of neurons from each region in vitro. Next, the team looked at how these neurons change when they’re communicating with one another. To do that, they cultured cells from each region independently and then let the cells establish connections via guided pathways embedded in the chip. The researchers then measured cell composition and electrical activity again and found that the cells dramatically changed when they were in contact with neurons from different regions.

“When the cells are communicating with other regions, the cellular composition of the culture changes, the electrophysiology changes, all these inherent properties of the neurons change,” said Maoz in a press release of the Wyss Institute. “This shows how important it is to implement different brain regions into in vitro models, especially when studying how neurological diseases impact connected regions of the brain.”

Die model is suitable to investigate various diseases as drug addiction, post traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury.

The researcher team has introduced their model in the Journal of Neurophysiology:
Stephanie Dauth, Ben M Maoz, Sean P Sheehy, Matthew A Hemphill, Tara Murty, Mary Kate Macedonia, Angie M Greer, Bogdan Budnik, Kevin Kit Parker (2016): Neurons derived from different brain regions are inherently different in vitro: A novel multiregional brain-on-a-chip. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00575.2016

Source and more information:
https://wyss.harvard.edu/multiregional-brain-on-a-chip/
https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/core-faculty/kevin-parker/