4V microfluidic platform for biological manipulation with glycine, glutamate, GABA and acetylcholine

This paper presents a new system dedicated for in vitro study of neuron networks to mimic neurodegenerative diseases. It is designed to modulate neurotransmitter concentration in a local area of the neuron network with dielectrophoretic manipulations. Particle motion was observed at low voltages down to 4 V peak to peak. Different concentrations of neurotransmitters close to brain concentrations were used with GABA, Glutamate, Acetylcholine and Glycine. The conductivity of manipulated liquid composed of artificial cerebrospinal fluid and neurotransmitters was 16.5 mS/cm. It was not significantly affected by neurotransmitter concentration change. The proposed system was tested with an 8 electrode array (EA) and further extended to a 320 EA in order to cover the back side of a 2.5 inches Petri dish for neuron culture.