Researchers have developed an organs-on-a-chip system that models the interactions between the brain, gut microbiome, liver, and colon in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
The system allows the research team to more fully understand the gut-brain axis’ role in neurological diseases, better replicating the complex interactions that murine mice models struggle to do.
The team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) produced by gut microbes are transported to the brain, where they have 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, an MIT postdoc and the lead author of the study.
Our gut-brain connection
January 31, 2021MIT
“Organs-on-a-chip” system sheds light on how bacteria in the human digestive tract may influence neurological diseases.
In many ways, our brain and our digestive tract are deeply connected. Feeling nervous may lead to physical pain in the stomach, while hunger signals from the gut make us feel irritable. Recent studies have even suggested that the bacteria living in our gut can influence some neurological diseases.
Modeling these complex interactions in animals such as mice is difficult to do, because their physiology is very different from humans’. 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.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In many ways, our brain and our digestive tract are deeply connected. Feeling nervous may lead to physical pain in the stomach, while hunger signals from the gut make us feel irritable. Recent studies have even suggested that the bacteria living in our gut can influence some neurological diseases.
Modeling these complex interactions in animals such as mice is difficult to do, because their physiology is very different from humans’. To help researchers better understa nd the gut-brain axis, MIT researchers have developed an “organs-on-a-chip” system that replicates interactions between the brain, liver, and colon.
Using that 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, which are produced by microbes in the gut and are transported to the brain, can have v
Caption: A project addressing Lyme disease, led by Linda Griffith, the School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, will combine four independent research groups at MIT and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard. Credits: Photo: Kathy Wittman
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Despite the fact that Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States, with more than 400,000 new cases every year, there are no consistently accurate tests for Lyme. Known in the medical community as “the great imitator,” Lyme disease can be challenging to diagnose as many of its symptoms, such as fatigue, disrupted sleep, brain fog, and joint and body pain, also occur with other diseases. As a result, Lyme victims are frequently misdiagnosed and researchers still don’t understand why 10-20 percent of Lyme patients remain sick, enduring painful and disabl