Scientists Transplant Human Brain Cells Into Living Rat Brains

A breakthrough study shows that it is possible for brain cells from one species to form and function in another. They are DEFINITELY not making human-rat monsters and/or Mutant rodents designed to train teenage turtles.

What is the use case for this breakthrough?

Stem cells called organoids can be used to study and experiment on human brain cells. They have some drawbacks. Organoids are only mimics at their best. Brain organoids are hard to grow to their normal size and form strong bonds with one another as real brain cells do inside of our heads.

Brain organoids may offer some scientific insight, but it isn't much. That is where the rats are.

The hypothesis of the study is that if we can transplant human neurons into the brain of a rat, we can make something.

They wanted to use a rat's brain to study human neurological function and neurological disorders.

Pasca said that psychiatrists are a huge burden to society. We need better models to study these conditions.

The brain cell organoids were obtained from human donors and were used to test the theory. The rats were left alone for eight months to grow into adults.

The rats' brains grew up to six times larger and formed stronger bonds than those grown in petri dishes. The rats were able to tell red light from blue light, a sign that the human-borne neurons had integrated with the rats' neural circuitry. I'm sorry!

The rats' brains were mostly rat and the stem cells didn't always grow as they would in a human brain. The research shows that when rat brains are used as a new and improved petri dish, they offer a far more advanced means to study human brain function than any in-petri organoid ever could.

This is a fascinating and potentially fruitful breakthrough that raises some serious ethical questions. Is it ethical to give a rat a brain disorder and then experiment on the minds of small humans?

Pasca told the Daily Beast that they were going to have to think carefully about what they wanted to do.

A mind bending experiment fused the brains of rats.