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, 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.