The brains are created using skin cells.
Scientists at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Medicine in Cambridge are growing tiny human brains in Petri dishes to study about human-specific disorders like autism and schizophrenia.
According to a report in BBC Future, hundreds of small human-like brains are grown in the laboratory of MRC. The studies based on these brains may find a permanent solution to several neurological and mental health issues faced by the humankind.
The brains are created using skin cells. These cells are turned into stem cells using protein and then developed into brain cells. However, any type of cell can be used to develop brain cells.
Stem cells have the ability to turn into any body tissue. To convert a cell into a stem cell, the scientists use a kind of cellular youth serum, a protein cocktail which can turn any cell back into an embryonic-like state.
It will grow into a sheet of cells within a week and can be removed from the dish to mould into a ball. Eventually, these cells start to take different forms and some of them will become brain cells.
“The brains develop in the same way you would see in an embryo,” Dr. Madeline Lancaster, one of the researchers, told BBC Future.
A specialty of these cells is their robust nature which helps them survive even if they are starved. The scientists preserve the cells using incubators.
These tiny brains are used to study the complex nature of human brain which leads to several issues.
“Our current interests focus on other neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and intellectual disability, by introducing mutations seen in these disorders and examining their roles in pathogenesis in the context of organoid development,” Dr. Lancaster says on her project page.
The “cerebral organoids” as they are called by the scientists, have features similar to human brains. They are divided into gray matter – which is made of neurons – and white matter, a fatty tissue composed of their spindly ‘tails’.
“Ultimately, we would like to use them to study more common disorders like schizophrenia or autism as it has been shown the underlying defects occur during the development of the brain,” said, Professor Juergen Knoblich, of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, another scientist working on the artificial brain.
‘We are satisfied – or we hope – we will be able to model some of these defects as well,” he added.
However, there are voices of dissent among scientists who have questioned creating the artificial human brain. Dr. Martin Coath, from the Cognition Institute at the University of Plymouth, is one among them.
According to Coath, “Something we have grown in the lab, but on a much simpler level than a human brain, might be hooked up to electronic eyes, ears, and hands and be taught to do something – maybe something that is as sophisticated as many simple living creatures.”
“That doesn’t seem so far off to me,” he said.