Scientists integrated tiny cell clusters called organoids with the animals’ own tissue, a step toward developing sophisticated mini-models of the brain.
of lab-grown human brain tissue were just specks, each measuring a few millimeters in diameter. Researchers at Stanford University made them by cultivating human stem cells into three-dimensional clumps of tissue. Called brain organoids, these simplified structures contain some of the cells and properties of a real human brain, offering insight into development and neurological conditions.
The Stanford team transplanted these clusters of human cells into the somatosensory cortices of newborn rats—the area that processes sensory information, such as touch, from across the body. Over several months, the organoids grew to occupy about one-third of the hemisphere of the rat brains. The research was. “This definitely pushes forward what organoids can do in terms of their functional integration into the brain,” says H.
In a departure from previous studies, Pasca and his colleagues found that the transplanted human neurons grew nerve fibers that extended into the rat brain tissue and formed junctions called synapses between rat neurons. These connections don’t exist in brain organoids grown in a dish, a major limitation that has driven scientists to transplant orgaonids into living animals.
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