Scientists Grow Human Brain Tissue Inside Engineered Mice– www.techexplorist.com
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For years, neuroscientists have faced a paradox: the human brain is the most complicated organ known, yet also the most difficult to study directly. It is almost impossible to access living tissue, and even the most sophisticated lab-grown models cannot replicate the full richness of human neural circuits.
Stanford Medicine researchers have now achieved a breakthrough that extends the limits of neuroscience by successfully transferring human cortical organoids, that is, small groups of brain tissue that are able to self-organize, into mice that have been genetically engineered so as to lack most of their own cortex.
The result is a new type of hybrid animal, the xenocortical mouse, the brain cavity of which contains human neurons that have not only survived but have grown, joined into neural circuits, and even made connections with the mouse’s spinal cord. This achievement marks a new stage in the study of human brain development, disease, and possible therapies.
To their surprise, the mice had an important nerve cell type that researchers hadn’t previously seen in laboratory culture. Researchers have found it only in autopsied human brains.
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