Human brain cells successfully implanted and integrated into newborn rats

Scientists have managed to insert and fuse human brain cells into newborn rats, paving the way for research into complex mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and autism, and potential cure tests.

Implanting human brain cells in newborn rats

Scientists can build microscopic portions of human brain tissue derived from stem cells in petri dishes. Then study it from there in various ways. The difference today is that they made a breakthrough by implanting and integrating human brain cells into newborn rats. As a result, a new way of studying complicated mental illnesses like schizophrenia and autism, and potentially testing therapies, has emerged.

It is extremely difficult to study how these disorders develop because animals do not feel them in the way humans do and humans cannot be easily opened up to study.

However, neurons do not develop to the size that a human neuron would grow in dishes alone in a real human brain, according to Sergiu Pasca, the study’s lead author and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.

But here is another problem. Because these human brain cells aren’t tied to a person, they can’t show us what symptoms a deficiency can cause.

To overcome these limitations, the researchers inserted organoids. To be clear, these are groups of human brain cells that have been transplanted into the brains of newborn rats. Human neurons have previously been implanted in adult rats, but an animal’s brain stops growing after a certain age. And that could limit how successfully implanted cells can integrate.

“By transplanting at these early stages, we found that these organoids can grow relatively large, be vascularized (receive nutrients) from the rat, and cover about a third of a rat’s (brain) hemisphere,” Pasca said.

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It works?

To see how effectively the human neurons interacted with the rats’ brains and bodies, air was blown over the animals’ whiskers. In turn, it caused electrical activity in human neurons that had been integrated in rats. Consequently, this showed an input link that external stimulation of the rat’s body was enabled by human tissue in the brain.

Next, the scientists investigated whether human neurons could send signals back to the rat’s body. Next, they implanted human brain cells that had been modified to respond to blue light, and then taught the rats to “expect a ‘reward’ of water from a spout when blue light passed through a wire in the animals’ skulls.” shines on the neurons”. After two weeks, the rats ran to the sink when the blue light pulsed.

Professor Tara Spires-Jones of the University of Edinburgh’s UK Dementia Research Institute said the research “has the potential to advance our knowledge of human brain development and neurodevelopmental diseases”.

Although Spiers-Jones was not involved in the study, she raised potential ethical concerns, such as “whether these rats would have more human-like thinking and consciousness.”

According to Pasca, careful examination of the rats showed that the brain implants did not alter them or cause pain. “There are no changes in the behavior or well-being of the rats… there are no functional enhancements,” he explained.

He claimed that limits on how deeply human neurons integrate into the rat brain serve as “natural limits” that prevent the animal from becoming too human.

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Written by Thea Felicity

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