- Studying the brain is difficult, and often involves invasive techniques, such as using a probe, to gain information about electrical signaling.
- This means our understanding of exactly how brain signaling works is limited, which has implications for basic science and medical research.
- A research team has discovered a way to inject an enzyme-containing gel into zebrafish brains, which triggers a reaction that causes it to turn into an electrode.
- This can be used to measure electrical cell signaling in the brain, which could have further clinical and research applications in the future.
Studying the brain is notoriously difficult. Sampling it in a living person is next to impossible, probing it is invasive, and getting drugs to cross
One of the most important breakthroughs in biology in the past decade has been harnessing the ability to influence stem cells, either embryonic or human stem cells, to form particular cell types.
Researchers have cultured these to form mini-organ models or organoids.
Organoids have proved particularly useful for studying the brain, and the different types of cells that the brain and nervous system are made from.
For example, one of the earliest uses of organoids was to develop a model of a person’s brain using induced pluripotent adult stem cells from their skin.
One area of current research focuses on seeing if models recreate the structures that develop naturally. So far, researchers have created brain organoids that demonstrate
In addition to this area of study, there is also work being done to study brain cells in vitro, or in a Petri dish, using induced pluripotent stem cells, to gain greater insight into how brain cells or neurons work.
Last year, a debate was launched when scientists from University College London in the United Kingdom and the…
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