MIT research shows nanodiscs can be used to mechanically stimulate neural cells

A team of researchers has discovered a new method to mechanically stimulate the human body's neural cells, which opens the possibility of direct bioelectronic treatment of specific organs without drugs or invasive electrodes.

MIT postdoc Danijela Gregurec, Alexander Senko, MIT Associate Professor Polina Anikeeva, and other researchers reported their findings in a paper recently published in the scientific journal ACS Nano.

Neural cells are routinely sensitive to chemical and electrical incitement, but many are also reactive to mechanical stimulation. Unfortunately, researchers have found the cells' responses to vibration, pressure, or other mechanical promptings difficult to study, because until now there has been no easy way to control the delivery of the stimulation.

A new delivery method is now possible due to the development of extremely tiny magnetic discs that exhibit a particular behavior when subjected to a specific type of magnetic field. These particles, each approximately only 100 nanometers in diameter, can be manufactured and injected in large quantities. This allows their collective effect inside the body to be potent enough to trigger a neural cell’s pressure receptors. 

“We made nanoparticles that actually produce forces that cells can detect and respond to,” Senko told MIT News.

While the work is just beginning, the finding could pave the way for the development of new types of neurostimulation remedies completely unlike the ones currently used to treat Parkinson's disease and other similar illnesses. Those methods require a wired electrical connection into the body, but the new treatments would require no such invasive equipment. An initial injection of nanoparticles would be the only physical trauma imposed on the body and the particles could be revived whenever needed by the use of an external magnetic field.

"This is a very first demonstration that it is possible to use these particles to transduce large forces to membranes of neurons in order to stimulate them," Gregurec told MIT News. "This means that anywhere in the nervous system where cells are sensitive to mechanical forces, and that's essentially any organ, we can now modulate the function of that organ."

The research received supported from the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and other national defense agencies.