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

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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @01:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @01:29PM (#225372)

    This whole thing is an ethical maze and there are no clear answers. That being said...

    My understanding is that brains are very much a combination of potential and stimuli. For example, I seem to recall something like if a person has not heard something for x years their brain loses the ability to understand sound (in regard to people born deaf... if they catch in quickly hearing implants can lead to a relatively ordinary life, but after a certain number of years even with implants the person will have very deficient hearing if any at all). So if this is just a mass of cells with no external stimuli it would not be a "mini-tortured person" so much as just a lump of meat.

    Of course this same type of argument could be used to say "people with dark skin are not really humans so it's morally okay to enslave them." So yeah... this whole thing is a giant ethical maze.