Stanford grows human neurons in mice brains, mice behave normally
Stanford scientists have made a big leap in brain research by growing human neurons inside mice brains.
They swapped out part of the mouse cortex for human brain cells, and these cells ended up taking over nearly one-half of the brain, yet the mice still acted pretty much like normal mice.
This opens up new ways to study how our brains work and what goes wrong in certain disorders.
Mice develop von Economo neurons
Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke Law, pointed out that researchers stopped things before the neurons got too mature, just to be safe.
Interestingly, these mice reacted to low oxygen in ways similar to human infants with brain injuries.
Plus, they developed von Economo neurons (linked to social behavior and frontotemporal dementia), which could help scientists learn more about this rare disease and maybe even find new treatments down the line.