Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) announced this week that they've been able to successfully grow 'mini brains' that produced brain waves similar to those seen in embryos and preterm infants.
Researchers at UCSD were able to grow the mini brains by placing human pluripotent stem cells in an environment that simulated early brain development over a period of ten months. The pea-sized "brains" known as "cerebral organoids" matured and eventually self-organized into cellular networks of connected cells - much like how our regular brains allow electrical signals to be transmitted.
The team determined the electrical activity in the organoids by sticking electrodes into the culture dish. At two months, scientists began seeing some evidence of activity, and consistent activity at around six months into the experiment.
The study announcing the results were published in the journal Cell Stem Cell on Thursday.
"We are one step closer to have a model that can actually generate these early stages of a sophisticated neural network," said Alysson Muotri, a molecular biologist at UCSD and author on the new study, in a press release.
"You can use brain organoids for several things, including understand normal human neurodevelopment, disease modeling, brain evolution, drug screening, and even to inform artificial intelligence," Muotri said.
Researchers used a machine learning algorithm trained in recognizing 567 electrical signal recordings taken from premature babies between six and ten months old to compare to what they were seeing being generated by their mini brains. The algorithm was then able to predict how many weeks old the organoids in the petri dish were. That means the process may mimic early brain development.
However, this doesn't mean the brains are functionally the same thing as an infant's brain, only that the electrical signals measured were similar. Scientists are convinced the organoids have not formed any kind of consciousness and the brain waves the team detected may not correlate to what is found in normal, real human brains.
"The organoid is still a very rudimentary model -- we don't have other brain parts and structures. So these brain waves might not have anything to do with activities in real brains," Muotri said. "It might be that in the future, we will get something that is really close to the signals in the human brains that control behaviors, thoughts, or memory. But I don't think we have any evidence right now to say we have any of those."
Photo: Muotri Lab/UCTV