'Human neurons become part of the rat circuitry.' Scientists hope that the experiment's human-rat transplants will give them a better understanding of how genetic mutations influence brain circuits and human behavior.
, producing results similar to the Stanford study. But they used adult mice, whereas the Stanford researchers chose newborn rats in order to see how the human neurons integrated with the rodents’ developing brain circuits.
Growing that type of tissue structure and then transplanting it"has not been done very often; in fact, maybe not at the level of precision that this paper is describing," Brivanlou said. Eventually, this type of rat model could be used to study psychiatric disorders, autism or neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, and even to identify new treatments or test their effectiveness.
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