New Organs-on-a-Chip System Replicates Interactions Between the Brain, Liver and Colon

To help researchers better understand the gut-brain axis, MIT researchers have developed an organs-on-a-chip system that replicates interactions between the brain, liver, and colon.

Using the new system, the researchers were able to model the influence that microbes living in the gut have on both healthy brain tissue and tissue samples derived from patients with Parkinson's disease. They found that short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), which are produced by microbes in the gut and are transported to the brain, can have very different effects on healthy and diseased brain cells.

"While short-chain fatty acids are largely beneficial to human health, we observed that under certain conditions they can further exacerbate certain brain pathologies, such as protein misfolding and neuronal death, related to Parkinson's disease," says Martin Trapecar, lead author of the study published today in Science Advances.

The organs-on-a-chip system developed for this this study built upon a microphysiological system previously developed by the team to model interactions between the liver and the colon. In the new study, the team added the brain and circulating immune cells to their multiorgan system. The brain has many interactions with the digestive tract, which can occur via the enteric nervous system or through the circulation of immune cells, nutrients, and hormones between organs.