The brain in a test tube

Japanese scientists today announced the creation of functioning human brain tissue from embryonic stem cells.

By regulating the expression of certain genes, employees from the government research center Riken in Kobe managed to grow nerve tissue from embryonic stem cells. To do this, they placed 3,000 cells in a nutrient solution and allowed them to combine naturally. After 46 days, the cells self-organized into a sphere of nerve tissue with a diameter of two millimeters with a cavity in the center.

This tissue turned out to consist of four types of nerve cells combined into four layers inherent in the cerebral cortex of the embryo at a period of 7-8 weeks from the moment of conception. In addition, electrical activity similar to the embryonic brain was observed in the resulting tissue. By examining this tissue, scientists have confirmed that nerve cells in it form a network and are able to activate spontaneously, as in a "natural" brain.

The head of the study Yoshiki Sasai (Yoshiki Sasai) is now planning to grow a six-layer tissue of the adult cerebral cortex from stem cells. According to him, this development will allow to obtain new information about diseases of the cerebral cortex, such as Alzheimer's disease and optimize the testing of drugs for their treatment. In the future, such tissue can be used for therapeutic transplantation, for example, to a brain area damaged by a stroke.