Advances in drug screening and toxicity testing: A review on Parkinson's disease using brain-on-a-chip

Abstract

Abstract. Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease (PD) pose substantial challenges to health and well-being. PD is characterized by the progressive degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain, leading to motor dysfunction, cognitive decline, and various non-motor symptoms. Advances in drug screening and toxicity testing have transformed the study of neurodegenerative diseases. Traditional methods often fall short in replicating the intricate environment of the human brain, highlighting the necessity for alternative pre-clinical models. Brain-on-a-chip technology, an innovative in vitro platform, offers a promising solution by simulating the intricate architecture and microenvironment of brain tissue. This microfluidic device incorporates living brain cells within a controlled setting, enabling the examination of neuronal behavior, disorder mechanisms, and pharmacological responses in a physiologically relevant context. This review examines recent advancements in brain-on-a-chip systems for PD research, emphasizes their potential to advance drug discovery and toxicity testing, also discusses the difficulty and limitations of current brain-on-a-chip technologies, for examples, challenges of specific neuron cell selection and incubation, and also restriction of organ-organ connection. By comparing in vitro and in vivo studies, brain-on-a-chip technology shows great promise for accelerating the development of effective therapies for PD, ultimately contributing to improved patient outcomes and a deeper understanding of the disease.