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News

News: December 2017 / January 2018

Human brains to connect to cloud storage! • Mini human brains implanted in rodents! • Psychologists study moral intuition — News reports by Anja Steinbauer

Merger 1: Human Brains & Animals

Brain organoid

Four years ago scientists first developed a method of growing stem cells into miniature versions of human brains called brain organoids. These ‘mini brains’, until now grown in the lab, have many of the same characteristics as living human brains at an early developmental stage. Their structural similarity and the fact that they react in a similar way to stimuli such as drugs means that they are extremely useful for research into (for instance) Alzheimer’s Disease, since opportunities for empirical studies of living, fully-developed, human brains are obviously very restricted for ethical reasons. A new development has now given rise to moral reservations concerning organoids.

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