Human Brain Implanted in Rats Hints a Medical Breakthrough
by Naba Batool
SHARES
According to the latest studies, researchers have successfully integrated human brain cells into newborn rats. This has offered a new way to treat various complex psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism.
The study of such diseases is extremely difficult because animals tend to exhibit different signs in animals as compared to humans. But considering humans for a research analysis is still an ethical debate.
The study is conducted by generating small specimens of human brain tissue that originated from stem cells. Sergiu Pasca who is the lead author of this study and professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Standford University said that "neurons don't grow to the size which a human neuron in an actual human brain would grow,"
Scientists have successfully implanted and integrated human brain cells into newborn rats, creating a new way to study complex psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, and perhaps eventually test treatments.https://t.co/4Tn9kofvmG
— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) October 13, 2022
In order to overcome the research difficulties, scientists have therefore implanted human neurons into the brain of young rats. Although, previously there has been human brain integration in adult rats the results were not favourable.
That is why the age of the rat was most important. This is mainly because after a certain age the rat’s brain stops developing, thus limiting the overall growth spectrum of the integrated brain.
Pasa commented that "By transplanting them at these early stages, we found that these organoids can grow relatively large, they become vascularised (receive nutrients) by the rat, and they can cover about a third of a rat's (brain) hemisphere,"
