Overview on microfluidics devices for monitoring brain disorder biomarkers

Neurological disorders are one of the leading causes of disability and death worldwide. The complexity of the human brain and therefore the significant structural gap between animal models and humans, all serve to hinder translational success. Recent advances in microfluidic devices and human organ-on-a-chip systems have provided new opportunities to study and monitor such diseases with the benefits of precise control, lower sample requirement and reagent consumption, cost-effectiveness and high throughput screening. Combined with biosensors, mass spectrometry or automatic imaging systems, they have emerged as a unique way to facilitate personalized medicine. To obtain relevant and reliable information, it is crucial to address the different challenges specific to each type of microfluidics device. In the following review, the discussion is focused on the technical setup of microfluidic devices for the detection of brain disorder biomarkers and on the microfluidics strategies that are applied to monitor neurological diseases. In the last section, we also discuss limitations, challenges and regulatory requirements that remain to be considered in future experiments. • Microfluidics applications were reviewed in regards of neurological disorder monitoring. • Microfluidics devices helped to reach high analysis throughput for in vivo studies. • Specificities of brain complexity were considered. • Analytical performances of microfluidics methods were discussed.