Stanford researchers grow working human brain tissue inside living mice
Technology
Scientists just pulled off something wild: they grew working human brain tissue inside living mice.
By tweaking the mice's brains to make room for human cells, researchers at Stanford created a new way to study how our brains develop and what goes wrong in disorders that are hard to research otherwise.
Stanford xenocortical protocol underwent ethics review
These "xenocortical" mice help scientists explore tricky conditions like autism and epilepsy, since the human brain cells actually connect with the mouse nervous system.
Of course, there are some big ethical questions (mixing human and animal brains isn't simple), so the protocol underwent comprehensive internal and external ethics reviews at Stanford.