Human brain cells transplanted in rats to study diseases
Scients have successfully transplanted human brain cells into the brains of ba rats, as a part of an effort to better study human brain development and diseases. Following the transplant, the brain cells are said to have grown and formed connections, reported The Associated Press.
“Many disorders such as autism and schizophrenia are likely uniquely human” but “the human brain certainly has not been very accessible,” said Dr Sergiu Pasca, senior author of a study describing the work, published in the journal Nature.
Glad to share our latest work out in @Nature todayWe show that human cortical #organoids transplanted into the somatosensory cortex of newborn rats develop mature cell types and integrate into sensory circuits and can influence reward-seeking behavior https://t.co/pUQt9CbbmM pic.twitter.com/OBr041KyvE
— Sergiu P. Pasca (@Sergiu_P_Pasca) October 12, 2022
The research builds upon the team’s previous work creating brain “organoids,” tiny structures resembling human organs like livers, kidneys, prostates, or key parts of them.
Stanford University scients transformed human skin cells into stem cells which were coaxed and then multiplied gradually to form organoids resembling the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is the human brain’s outermost layer, which is important in things like memory, thinking, learning, reasoning and emotions.
Pasca, a psychiatry professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, said this is the first time these organoids have been placed into early rat brains, creating “the most advanced human brain circuitry ever built from human skin cells and a demonstration that implanted human neurons can influence an animal’s behaviour.”
(With inputs from AP)
