Create tiny brain from human skin

Scientists have used stem cells extracted from the skin to develop 3D tissue that mimics a human brain. The breakthrough is expected to help treat neurological diseases such as schizophrenia and autism.

Professor Juergen Knoblich of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, Austria, extracted induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from the connective tissue of a small-headed patient. This is a rare but extremely dangerous genetic disorder that significantly reduces the size of the patient's brain and causes "mental pain" to have a serious mental disability.

The tiny young brain comes from stem cells extracted from human skin.(Photo: National News)

Like many neurological diseases, the scientific community is very difficult to study for microcephaly in mice because they do not have the complexity of the brain as in humans.

Professor Knoblich and colleagues used a 3D matrix support system, which simulates the human embryo environment and special laboratory equipment called "rotating bioreactors ", specialized in producing nutrients and oxygen, to promote patients' iPS cells to develop into tiny brains.

The new simulated brains are only 3 to 4 millimeters across and have a structure similar to the immature human brain. They have helped the team identify defects that affect the normal development of the human brain in small head disease.

Professor Knoblich hopes to use the tiny artificial brains in the future to study more common disorders such as schizophrenia and autism because it shows hidden defects. in the development of the brain.

The normal human brain (left) and the artificially immature brain (right) are in the process of developing.(Photo: National News)

Evaluation of research by Austrian scientists, Dr. Oliver Brustle, researcher on neuropathology and famous stem cells at the University of Bonn (Germany), describes the work "very remarkable" . Brustle said the project promises to bring a new important tool to better understand the causes of serious brain development disorders and to test potential treatments.

However, scientists claim, we are still far from achieving the ability to create an artificial brain and even damaged parts of the brain.