Scientists may now be able to grow a brain using human neurons

Scientists may have made a major leap forward on the path to growing a fully-formed human brain in the lab. According to a new study, researchers at Tufts University have now grown a 3D tissue model of the brain using human neurons, providing them with a better opportunity to study abnormal brain cells. Though brain tissue cells have been cultured for years under laboratory conditions, this technique employs a three-dimensional scaffold of functional neural tissue. The researchers used human induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs taken from a variety of sources to create "brain-like organoids." "We found the right conditions to get the iPSCs to differentiate into a number of different neural subtypes, as well as astrocytes that support the growing neural networks," said David Kaplan from Tufts.