The relationship between red blood cell deformability and brain activity

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K20987
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 20:Mechanical dynamics, robotics, and related fields
• Research Institution: Meijo University
• Principal Investigator: Kaneko Makoto 名城大学, 理工学部, 教授 (70224607)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-07-30 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 赤血球変形能 / マイクロ流体チップ / 人工毛細血管 / 脳活性度 / 高速カメラ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

When a red blood cell with the diameter of 10 micrometer passes through a capillary with the diameter of 3 ～5 micrometer, the speed is slow down due to high drag force between the cell and capillary. Suppose that a red blood cell is extremely high deformability. Under such a situation, hemoglobin can carry much oxygen to brain nerve cells speedily, which leads to activating brain activity. Our hypothesis is that there should be a correlation between the deformability of red blood cell and the brain activity. As for the deformability of red blood cell, we chase a cell by a high speed camera and measured the cell velocity being in proportion to the deformability. As for the brain activity, we planned to use fMRI (Magnetic response function imaging method) for evaluating the brain activity through the quantity of blood flow. To our regret, we could not execute experiments for evaluating the brain activity by using fMRI due to high rental fee with millions of yen.

Free Research Field

計測技術

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

脳活性を維持するためには脳細胞に絶えず酸素を運び続ける必要がある。興味深い点は、哺乳類の赤血球には核がなく哺乳類以外の脊椎動物の赤血球には核が存在している点である。申請者は赤血球になる直前の赤芽球と赤血球の変形能を調べ、有核の赤芽球は人工毛細血管入口で頻繁に詰まるが無核の赤血球はスムーズに通過し、両者に歴然とした差が現れることを実験的に見出した。哺乳類は赤血球変形能を向上させたことで、脳神経細胞に酸素を潤沢に運べるようになり、結果的に脳が進化したという仮説は否定できない。本研究は、赤血球変形能と脳活性度の統計データを調べることで、脳科学、医学、工学の学際領域で新しい学術分野創成に寄与する。