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Researchers Claim "Almost Fully Formed" Human Brain Grown in a Lab

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday August 20 2015, @06:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-there's-an-idea dept.

fleg writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 2) by fleg on Thursday August 20 2015, @08:13AM

    by fleg (128) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 20 2015, @08:13AM (#225318)

    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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:45PM (#225410)

    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.

    If the team’s claims prove true, the technique could revolutionise personalised medicine. “If you have an inherited disease, for example, you could give us a sample of skin cells, we could make a brain and then ask what’s going on,” said Anand.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:54PM (#225417)

      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.