Search Here

Research into recreating organs in the laboratory has been a main focus for years. If researchers can successfully create working organs, these organs can be used as viable transplants for dying patients. Aside from potentially giving people more treatment options, researchers attempt to recreate complex organs in order to study them better. In a new study, scientists from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences reported that they have created mini brain structures the size of peas.

According to the researchers, the small miniature brains are comparable to the brain of a nine-week-old fetus. Even though these miniature structures are incapable of thought, the researchers believe that they can reveal a lot about the brain's structure. In order to achieve a three-dimensional structure of the brain, the researchers first used either embryonic stem cells or adult skin cells. These cells helped make the part of the embryo that grows into the neuroectoderm, which makes up the brain and spinal cord.

The neuroectoderm was then placed in a scaffold made by tiny droplets of gel. The droplets were put into a spinning bioreactor, which provided the structure with nutrients and oxygen. In this scaffold, the cells grew into separate parts of the brain, which included the cerebral cortex, early signs of a hippocampus and the retina. After two months of growth, the tissues grew to the size of four millimeters (0.1 inches). According to the study, these miniature brains have existed for almost a year but have not grown at all. There is currently no blood supply in the tissues.

"What our organoids are good for is to model development of the brain and to study anything that causes a defect in development," Dr. Juergen Knoblich, one of the researchers, said according to BBC News. "Ultimately we would like to move towards more common disorders like schizophrenia or autism. They typically manifest themselves only in adults, but it has been shown that the underlying defects occur during the development of the brain."

The researchers are currently using the structure to study microcephaly, a disease that results in a smaller brain. The team used skin cells from patients with microcephaly in order to study how this condition manifests. They found that some of the cells specialized too early before the brain fully developed, stunting growth. The researchers hope that more work with these brain structures can uncover more information about other brain diseases. The recent study was one of the biggest breakthroughs in recreating brain cells. Previous studies have not been successful in making a three-dimensional structure.

"I think it's just mindboggling. The idea that we can take a cell from a skin and turn it into, even though it's only the size of a pea, is starting to look like a brain and starting to show some of the behaviors of a tiny brain, I think is just extraordinary," commented Professor Paul Matthews, from Imperial College London who was not a part of the study. "Now it's not thinking, it's not communicating between the areas in the way our brains do, but it gives us a real start and this is going to be the kind of tool that helps us understand many of the major developmental brain disorders."

The study was published in Nature.