Blood brain barrier-on-a-chip permeation to model neurological diseases using microfluidic biosensors

The need to understand human body functions, monitor disease progression, and advance in drug development have consistently been major driving forces for medical innovations and advancements. Organ-on-a-Chip technology, particularly Blood-brain-barrier (BBB)-on-chip technology, creates an avenue to closely replicate the brain environment and provides real-time monitoring of cells. Located at the interface between the blood and the brain parenchyma, the blood-brain barrier is crucial for protecting the brain due to its semi-permeable nature, and is responsible for regulating the movement of molecules between the blood and the brain. Therefore its integrity and perfect functionality are essential for the unperturbed functioning of the central nervous system. The lack of effective in-vitro models to investigate these diseases due to various technical and economic limitations poses a significant challenge. Moreover, the use of in-vivo models involving other primates and rodents for experimentation further poses a challenge due to physiological variations between humans and other species and has ethical constraints. Our study explores how the BBB-on-chip overcomes a lot of these limitations posed by the other in-vitro and in-vivo models, making it a more efficient and accurate model to investigate the blood-brain barrier. The study further explains the evolution, applications, and future prospects of the BBB on-chip technologies.