Diagnosis and Treatment of Brain Diseases with Ultra-Miniature Chips... "No Need to Extract Cerebrospinal Fluid"

Research Team Led by Jo Il-ju, Director of KIST Brain Science Institute, Develops 'Ultra-Small Multifunctional Brain Chip'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] A technology has been developed that can measure brain signals and diagnose and treat brain disease patients by implanting an ultra-small multifunctional chip instead of extracting cerebrospinal fluid.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced on the 17th that the research team led by Director Jo Il-ju of the Brain Science Research Institute developed an ultra-small multifunctional brain chip integrating a fluid channel for cerebrospinal fluid extraction, a fluid channel for drug injection, and electrodes for measuring brain signals.

Accurate measurement of neurotransmitter concentration is important for identifying causes or treating brain diseases, but until now, a 0.5mm-sized fluid tube for cerebrospinal fluid extraction had to be inserted. The problem is that it can cause damage to brain tissue, and since the fluid tube extends across multiple brain areas, it is difficult to analyze neurotransmitters in specific brain regions. Also, it cannot measure brain signals, which are key indicators of normal brain activity. This made it difficult to analyze the correlation between neurotransmitters and brain activity.

The research team developed an ultra-small multifunctional brain chip integrating a fluid channel for cerebrospinal fluid extraction, a fluid channel for drug injection, and electrodes for measuring brain signals to overcome these limitations. Previously, in 2019, they developed the world's first brain chip capable of simultaneous drug injection and signal measurement, which was published in an international academic journal. The researchers focused on the fact that analyzing brain activity requires not only electrical signals from the brain but also analysis of cerebrospinal fluid, and thus additionally integrated a fluid channel for cerebrospinal fluid extraction into the brain chip. The developed chip is about one-eighth the size of existing commercial cerebrospinal fluid extraction devices, minimizing brain tissue damage during insertion. It allows precise analysis of brain activity by simultaneously observing neurotransmitters and brain signals. Since cerebrospinal fluid is extracted at low pressure through a small fluid channel, the phenomenon of channel blockage during long-term use was minimized.

The research team implanted the developed multifunctional brain chip into the brains of living mice to extract cerebrospinal fluid while simultaneously measuring brain signals. After administering drugs that regulate neural activity to the mice, they measured changes in neurotransmitters and brain signals over time and conducted experiments to verify the effects of brain disease treatment drugs from multiple perspectives. They confirmed that the brain chip can be used as a new tool for verifying brain disease treatments.

Director Jo said, "The new neurotransmitter measurement brain chip is small in size yet can implement various functions at once, minimizing brain damage and serving as a useful tool for researching causes and treatments of brain diseases." He added, "It is expected to contribute to developing effective brain disease treatments by being applied to various brain disease model animals."

This research result was published in the latest issue of the international academic journal ‘Biosensors and Bioelectronics’ (IF: 10.258, top 0.580% in JCR field).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.