• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Human Brain Cells Implanted Into Rat Brains Form Connections With Their Hosts

October 13, 2022 by Deborah Bloomfield

Scientists have transplanted human brain cells into the brains of rats, discovering that the new neurons will grow as the rat develops and even help influence their behavior. The research has resounding implications on not just neurological research, but also the ethics of creating animal-human hybrids in this way. 

The Stanford University team took lab-grown bundles of human neurons and all the supporting cells around them and transplanted them into the developing brains of newborn rats. As the rodents grew, the human neurons were integrated within the brains and formed working circuits, which the researchers now say they can use for studying neurodevelopmental disorders. 

Advertisement

“We can now study healthy brain development as well as brain disorders understood to take root in development in unprecedented detail, without needing to excise tissue from a human brain,” said Pasca, the Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of Stanford Brain Organogenesis and co-author of the study, in a statement.  

“We can also use this new platform to test new drugs and gene therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders.” 

The team used a method they had previously described in 2015, where human skin cells are transformed into stem cells and then differentiated into various brain organoids. In doing so, the lab could create specific regions of the brain in tiny organoid form – not quite as developed as those in a naturally occurring brain, but perfect for transplanting into a model animal. 

Advertisement

Owing to infants’ impressive ability to make new connections as the brain develops, almost 100 rat pups just two or three days old received transplants of these bundles of human brain cells in the exact same region of the brain.  

It didn’t take long before the rats’ own inner machinery started moving in on the human cells to supply them with blood and nutrients. Suddenly supplied with immune cells and all the necessary ingredients to thrive, the human neurons grew from just a fraction of an inch all the way to occupying around one third of the rat’s hemisphere. Compared to neurons that stayed cooped up in the petri dish, these transplanted neurons were now six times larger and significantly more complex. 

The researchers then transplanted two different bundles of human cells – one derived from a patient with Timothy syndrome, a neurological disorder that is linked with autism and epilepsy, and one a control without the syndrome – into the same brain on either hemisphere. In the Timothy syndrome hemisphere, the neurons developed differently and were much smaller, giving the researchers an unprecedented insight into how these disorders develop. 

Advertisement

Continuing with the other rats, the researchers then demonstrated that the human circuitry was directly influencing their behavior by specifically stimulating the small organoids within the rats’ brains in a Pavlovian experiment. They also found neither a benefit nor deficit in the functioning of the rats with the implants, suggesting they had a role in cognitive function but did not improve it. 

“This is the most advanced human brain circuitry ever built from human skin cells and a demonstration that implanted human neurons can influence an animal’s behavior,” Pasca said.  

“Our platform provides, for the first time, behavioral readouts for human cells and could, we hope, accelerate our understanding of complex psychiatric conditions.”

Advertisement

Their research was published in the journal Nature. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Tennis-Canadian teen Fernandez pulls off another upset to reach U.S. Open final
  2. Twitter accelerates again with Bitcoin tips, NFTs, recorded Spaces, creator fund and more
  3. Lamborghini Huracán STO: A final celebration before electrification
  4. Google to invest $1 billion in Africa over five years

Source Link: Human Brain Cells Implanted Into Rat Brains Form Connections With Their Hosts

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Are There Body Parts You Can Live Without? Find Out More In Issue 37 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
  • New Study Unearths Humanity’s “Hidden” Crossings Out Of Africa
  • Trichonephila Clavipes: The Spider That Spins “Golden” Silk
  • The Southern Delta Aquariids And Alpha Capricornids Meteor Showers Will Dazzle The Skies Together Soon
  • Virus Found In Black-Eyed Pea Plants Could Be Used To Treat Cancer
  • Many People Have No Idea Where Oil Actually Comes From. It’s Not Dinosaurs
  • “World’s Rarest Elephant”: Meet Motty, The Only Known Elephant Hybrid
  • Missing 40 Percent Of Matter In The Universe Finally Discovered, Could We Be On Track For A Universal Cancer Vaccine, And Much More This Week
  • Solar Power Producing Heliostats Could Get A “Night Job” Finding Asteroids
  • COVID-19 Can Lead To Build Up Of Alzheimer’s-Linked Protein Clumps In Eyes And Brain
  • The Wild Life Of Snowflake, The Only Albino Gorilla Ever Known
  • Stunning Drone Footage Reveals Largest Turtle Nesting Site In The World, Containing 41,000 Females
  • New “Different Form” Of Type 1 Diabetes Found In Sub-Saharan African And Black American Patients
  • Neanderthals May Have Feasted On Maggots, Which They Harvested From Rotting Flesh
  • Common Cannabis Substitute May Be Far More Psychoactive Than Previously Thought
  • This Is The Most Bizarre International Border In The World
  • Earth Will Not Fall Into Darkness Next Week – But There Is An “Eclipse Of The Century” In 2027
  • 850,000-Year-Old Remains Suggest Prehistoric Child Was Decapitated And Eaten By Its Own Kind
  • How To Watch The ISS As It Crosses The US Night Sky In The Next Few Days
  • “Robo-Bunnies” Are Florida’s Newest Weapon Against Python Invaders
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version