Scientists have successfully inserted and merged human brain cells into newborn rats, paving the way to studying complex mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and autism, and potential testing remedies.
Implanting Human Brain Cells Into Newborn Rats
Scientists can build microscopic portions of human brain tissue generated from stem cells in Petri dishes. Then from there, study it in multiple ways. The difference today is that they successfully made a breakthrough by implanting and integrating human brain cells into newborn rats. As a result, a new method for studying complicated mental illnesses like schizophrenia and autism, and maybe testing therapies, has emerged.
It is extremely difficult to study how these disorders evolve since animals do not feel them the same way humans do, and humans cannot simply be opened up for investigation.
However, according to Sergiu Pasca, the study's principal author and a Stanford University lecturer of psychiatry and behavioral sciences to WIO News, neurons do not develop to the size that a human neuron in an actual human brain would grow in dishes alone.
But here's another problem. Because these human brain cells are not attached to a person, they cannot show us what symptoms a deficiency may create.
To address these constraints, researchers inserted organoids. To be clear, these are groups of human brain cells that had been inserted into the brains of newborn rats. Human neurons had previously been implanted into adult rats, but an animal's brain stops growing at a certain age. And that could limit how successfully implanted cells can integrate.
"By transplanting them at these early stages, we found that these organoids can grow relatively large, they become vascularised (receive nutrients) by the rat, and they can cover about a third of a rat's (brain) hemisphere," Pasca said.
Does it Work?
To see how effectively the human neurons interacted with the rat brains and bodies, an air was blasted over the animals' whiskers. In return, causing electrical activity in the human neurons that had been integrated in rats. Consequently, this demonstrated an input link that the external stimulation of the rat's body was made possible by human tissues in the brain.
The scientists next investigated if human neurons could send signals back to the rat's body. Next, they implanted human brain cells that had been modified to react to blue light and then taught rats to "expect a "reward" of water from a spout when blue light" was shined on the neurons through a cable in the animals' skulls. After two weeks, the rats ran to the spout when the blue light pulsed.
Professor Tara Spires-Jones of the University of Edinburgh's UK Dementia Research Institute stated the research "has the potential to increase what we know about human brain development and neurodevelopmental diseases."
Although Spires-Jones was not engaged in the study, she raised potential ethical concerns, such as "whether these rats would have more human-like thinking and consciousness."
According to Pasca, a meticulous study of the rats indicated that the brain implants did not modify them or cause pain. "There are no changes in the rats' behavior or well-being... there are no function augmentations," he explained.
He contended that limits on how deeply human neurons integrate with the rat brain serve as "natural boundaries" that prevent the animal from becoming too human.
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Written by Thea Felicity
