Scientists Create Brain-like Blobs in Test Tubes

They’re the closest thing to human brains that scientists have grown in the lab.

Researchers in Austria and the United Kingdom have nurtured human cells into pea-sized clusters of tissues with striking similarities to embryonic brains.

They provide an unprecedented opportunity to study how disorders such as schizophrenia and autism develop.

The researchers began with stem cells, which can become any type of tissue in the body.

With a little chemical coaxing and a protein scaffold to grow on, they followed the same developmental steps that human brains do. They formed distinct regions resembling those found at about nine weeks after conception. Some even had the beginnings of a retina.

Not quite brains

“All of these steps we have in our cultures, to a level of precision that is totally unexpected," said Juergen Knoblich at the Austrian Academy of Science, who directed the research.


fuente: La Voz de América, http://www.voanews.com/content/scientists-creat-brain-like-blobs-in-test-tubes/1738975.html

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