Human Mini-Brains Growing Inside Rat Bodies Are Starting to Integrate

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monkeymagick

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Starting on November 11, an annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience will convene in Washington, D.C. Among the group will be two teams of researchers that plan to present reports on unexpected interaction between organoids and their rodent hosts.

Organoids are tiny human like brains that scientists are implanting into rats and mouse as well as other animals for researching the human brain. The most advanced organoids have been found to connect to the host animals circulatory and nervous system creating human axons in the brains. Although we shouldn't worry too much yet as the size of the brains are still relatively small and cannot grow large enough to even mimic our own.

Putting human brain structures into non-human animals creates a thorny ethical area that raises people's fears about medical research going too far into unfamiliar territory -- and too quickly. It's likely to be a recurring theme in this field, too. In January, Salk Institute researchers developed human-pig chimeras, creating the possibility that pigs with human brain cells might also develop human consciousness. braniac
 
The Hollywood was wrong... It will be planet of the rats
 
Even without human brains, my blue rats come when you call by individual name.
Given the size of their processor, mine doesn't compete...

This chick is hot, for a crazy rat lady...
 
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So the concern here is "unfamiliar territory"? Really? I thought that is what science is all about. If you only do things that have been done before how do you expect to find anything new?
 
One of the concerns expressed in a different article on this was how much human brain material does it take before the host critter starts thinking like a human? And if it does, does it qualify for legal status? Not opposed to the research at this point. The "How much does it take?" question is one worth answering if we can. Plus, this might lead to treatment for folks with brain damage.
 
Dead Parrot said:
One of the concerns expressed in a different article on this was how much human brain material does it take before the host critter starts thinking like a human? And if it does, does it qualify for legal status? Not opposed to the research at this point. The "How much does it take?" question is one worth answering if we can. Plus, this might lead to treatment for folks with brain damage.
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It would depend on what part of the brain grows. They might make serial killer rats or special snowflake ones or nothing at all.
 
The Island of Dr. Moreau grows closer!!!
tumblr_m4k045wos11r9t0eso1_500.jpeg
 
Douglas Adams - I figure rats and mice are pretty interchangeable:


Mice are merely the protrusion into our dimension of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who, unbeknownst to the human race, are the most intelligent species on the planet Earth. They spent a lot of their time in laboratories running complex experiments on humans. They paid Magrathea for the planet (Earth) and will now collaborate to create a new one due to the interruption of Vogons.

At the outset, they were so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life, which used to interrupt their favorite game, Brockian Ultra Cricket, that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all.

They were the creators of Deep Thought, a stupendous super computer the size of a small city, to tell them the Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything. When seven and a half million years later it was realized they didn't know the question to the answer they'd been given, a second computer, of such infinite and subtle complexity that life itself would form part of its operational matrix, was created to work out the Ultimate Question. That computer was known as the Earth.
 
Reminds me of a story I read many years ago.

A scientist decided to see if he could force the evolution of rats by creating more and more complex survival problems for them to solve.
Only the smartest rats survived to pass on their genes to the next generation.
As they grew smarter, he increased the complexity of the problems.
Eventually the rats stated making tools and showing more complex behavior.
Other scientist got worried and they decided to shut down the experiment, but when they went to check on the rats, the rats had escaped the lab and were no where to be found.
What could go wrong?
 
"Brisby? Mrs. Jonathan Brisby!? You must seek out the rats in the rosebush. They can move your house into the lee of the stone. They have ways..." (Great Owl, Secret of NIMH)
 
I find this somewhat troublesome.

What are the ethical concerns of growing human brains and experimenting on them. Are these human brains conscious? Capable of thought?
 
Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy:
Animals, Races and species
Mice


Mice are merely the protrusion into our dimension of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who, unbeknownst to the human race, are the most intelligent species on the planet Earth. They spent a lot of their time in laboratories running complex experiments on humans. They paid Magrathea for the planet (Earth) and will now collaborate to create a new one due to the interruption of Vogons.

Implanting human axions in mice... I guess we are trying to make them stupid
bozo.gif
 
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I dunno... Even with a human brain structure, wouldn't they still have an intelligence strictly lower than monkeys, which scientists are already OK with experimenting on?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I find this somewhat troublesome.

What are the ethical concerns of growing human brains and experimenting on them. Are these human brains conscious? Capable of thought?
Click to expand...

These articles mention the scientific/philsophical debate behind human consciousness. Because it's up to debate, especially within animals, they might just go ahead and keep experimenting, at least that's what I garnered from it.
 
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