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The Guardian is reporting that the first (almost) fully formed human brain has been grown in a lab. Note, no paper or data has yet been published, but...
An almost fully-formed human brain has been grown in a lab for the first time, claim scientists from Ohio State University. The team behind the feat hope the brain could transform our understanding of neurological disease.
Though not conscious the miniature brain, which resembles that of a five-week-old foetus, could potentially be useful for scientists who want to study the progression of developmental diseases. It could also be used to test drugs for conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, since the regions they affect are in place during an early stage of brain development.
Is it thinking?
The ethical concerns were non-existent, said Rene Anand of Ohio State University. "We don't have any sensory stimuli entering the brain. This brain is not thinking in any way."
Personally I'd like to see it hooked up to an fMRI just to check.
(Score: 2) by fleg on Thursday August 20 2015, @07:55AM
beats me. but it would be interesting to see what, if any, activity it did show. for instance, does it show the same areas active/inactive as a sleeping person? as one doing a crossword? that sort of thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TGV on Thursday August 20 2015, @08:01AM
According to the post, it's the size of a 5 months week foetus' brain. I don't know much about brain development, but that's really, really tiny (a 5 week old foetus is smaller than 1cm), and has never been scanned, AFAIK.
Also, our brain is heavily shaped by being exposed to sensory input over years and years. You can't compare the brain of a being that has never even seen light to one of a being that can recognize trains, planes and automobiles.
(Score: 2) by fleg on Thursday August 20 2015, @08:13AM
sure, i'm just saying it would be *interesting* to perform the scan. i'm not making any predictions or comparisons, it would just be interesting.
in other news, i was at an MRI conference a few years ago and someone there presented a sequence of scans (just MRI no f) of a baby's brain, dont recall the exact age of the first in the sequence, but it was newly born, and in the first image it was basically a smooth balloon before becoming the ridged and rippled thing you'd expect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:45PM
Did you rtfa? They want to eventually grow these brains from your skin cells so that they can then ask the brain what is going on. They plan on making thinking ones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:54PM
I guess the skin cells would be if you had an inherited skin disease. If you have colon cancer you would grow a brain from those so you can just ask the cells straight up what exactly their problem is. This would revolutionize medicine if it worked. All medical research and diagnosis would consist of turning the problem cells into a brain and then asking it questions. I am sure the answers will be very ambiguous and oracle-like, it will require years of training to get your Vitropsych degree so people trust your interpretation. MDs will be pretty much obsolete, some PhDs will still be needed to grow the brains.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday August 20 2015, @01:56PM
You can't compare the brain of a being that has never even seen light to one of a being that can recognize trains, planes and automobiles.
You're right: a being that has never seen light would never launch into a giant F-bomb tirade.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:10PM
Yours is the post I was looking for. A five week fetus does not have much of a brain. It is nowhere near "fully formed". A full term baby doesn't even have a "fully formed" brain. If I didn't already know this, I would have learned it when my youngest son was born. His skull was already all fused together, and on the day he was born, pressure was already building up, because his brain was still growing. At three days of age, he went under the knife and the saw, and the surgeons cut his skull into pieces so that the brain could continue to grow.
I'm not certain, but I think around 2 1/2 years of age, the brain can be said to be "fully formed".
And, that would explain why many people retain no memories from the first year, or even two years of life. My own earliest memories start at three.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Francis on Thursday August 20 2015, @03:24PM
The brain isn't "fully formed" until sometime in a person's late 20s. That's when the skull generally finishes hardening and can no longer expand to allow for more brains. At that point, all you can really do is shuffle the space and glucose allocated to various functions between each other. The pre-frontal cortex, requires a relatively large amount of experience in order to finish developing. And that takes time. It's why you see teens engaged in behaviors that are counter-productive and not realizing it. A few years later and they have the cognitive ability to predict the results of the action that wasn't there previously.
But, there's a point years earlier where the brain is essentially done building, the additional brain power isn't as important and some people never bother to develop it fully.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday August 21 2015, @04:54AM
While I don't think this "brain" is capable of thought am i the only one that read the headline and thought about that Tales From the Darkside Episode [imdb.com] where the rich could escape death by becoming a "brain in a box"?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.