WASHINGTON, Feb 15 — Little balls made of brain matter might sound profoundly disturbing, but these micro-mini brains could be key to helping scientists study our own brains in the lab.
Ars Technica reported that researchers led by Thomas Hartung, of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health have created miniature, spherical-shaped brains.
Hartung said that they weren’t the first to create tiny brains but their version retained a small size and were created by coaxing cells into reverting into stem cells.
Why did these distinctions matter? Apparently miniature brains that were too large tended to rot quickly from the inside out as these brains had no blood vessels to feed cells deeply embedded in them. Procuring original stem cells tended to be a difficult endeavor thus creating stem cells in the lab instead of from human specimens circumvented ethical and legal concerns.
These mini-brains, the researchers hoped, could eventually be used to help researchers in various endeavours including studying autism and testing drugs.
