Japanese Scientists Manage to Grow Artificial Brain

The basis for the organ was pluripotent stem cells that can differentiate into any type of cell in the body.

The creation of artificial organs is one of the priority areas of today’s science. Simplified copies of real biological systems are perfect for experimenting and testing new drugs, and full-fledged organs can be quite successfully used for transplantation.

But is it possible to create an artificial brain? As it turns out, it is, and recently such a structure has been grown in Japan. The basis for the mini-brain was stem cells taken from an adult. They were used to grow an authentic structure, which was then placed in a Petri dish. There, the cells formed a neural network similar to human cerebral cortex.

Our brain has been studied very little so far. Such artificial organs will help researchers understand the processes taking place within us without having to dissect a human brain. It will enable them to find out the causes of many diseases and develop effective methods to treat them.