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Human Mini-Brains Growing Inside Rat Bodies Are Starting To Integrate (inverse.com)

At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience starting November 11 in Washington D.C., two teams of scientists plan to present previously unpublished research on the unexpected interaction between human mini-brains and their rat and mouse hosts. "In the new papers, according to STAT, scientists will report that the organoids survived for extended periods of time -- two months in one case -- and even connected to lab animals' circulatory and nervous systems, transferring blood and nerve signals between the host animal and the implanted human cells," reports Inverse. "This is an unprecedented advancement for mini-brain research." From the report: That mini-brains can even be grown in the lab is a huge advancement in the first place, as they have many of the same characteristics as living human brains that are in the early stages of development. Though they're not "alive" in the same sense that you and I are, they grow and are organized into different layers like our brains are. They even react in similar ways to stimuli like psychedelic drugs. Organoids are poised to revolutionize research on the human brain since scientists can perform tests on them that would be unethical to attempt on living humans. STAT also reports that a third lab, in addition to the two presenting at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, has successfully connected human brain organoids to blood vessels. This attempt veered into such challenging ethical territory, though, that the lab reportedly paused its efforts.

2 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Re: When Will This Work On Republicans? by rtb61 · · Score: 0, Troll

    That is intelligence how about emotional and empathic responses. The typical Republicans are psychopaths as the leaders with narcissists as the minions, willing to do anything for anyone for empty compliments about how great they are and a minimum wage. I would not really call them homo sapiens as there is sufficient genetic cerebral anti-social differences to call them a sub species, a parasitical subspecies. The sooner psychopaths are eliminated in the womb the better off humanity will be, no more wars.

    I prefer people to be a bit more human, a bit more understanding, that shallow supposedly smart believers of nonsense that feeds their ego. Ever consider smart people stop playing smart for intelligent reasons, leaving the not so smart to ponce about posing with crap, their ego on shallow empty self preening displays. That is of course the norm for the US Tesla the fool and Edison the genius, well at least that's the story painted by US corporate greed (Edison not that smart, just a typical plotting and scheming psychopath making use of corruption to get rich but that is the American Dream, getting rich off a bunch of poor workers backs, the more and the poorer the better).

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Re:Ethics or morals? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Scientists should be careful to ensure they can't communicate meaningfully with these minibrains, because the instant one of those things signals that it's hurting or wants the pain to stop, the ethics and morals will apply again and we will be having strange discussions about whether those mini brains come with souls or not.

    I see...so your answer to how to deal with one of these things trying to communicate intelligently that it is in pain...is to ensure we don't listen to it. Nice one champ.