Creating a new living mini brain in the lab – Nature Communications Biology
PhD student Aref Saberi designed a new way of creating living mini brains in the lab; these tissues also show the real neuronal network functionality of the human brain. This is FAR beyond connecting brain cells to e.g. an electrode; here – by providing the right environmental triggers to cells – the cells self-organized into a brain tissue that was also inherently functioning as brain tissue; with an interconnected network.
Not only has the study paved the way towards more realistic studies of the (diseased) human brain, but the manipulative character of the model is also of great value to the field of neurology that is in great demand of finding living models for investigating (in a direct and fundamental way) network diseases of the brain.
This exciting work was published in Nature – Communications Biology. Congratulations to this team effort: Nicholas Kurniawan, Carlijn Bouten from Eindhoven University of Technology ICMS – Institute for Complex Molecular Systems and Albert P. Aldenkamp from Maastricht UMC+ Kempenhaeghe Eindhoven University of Technology.
Check out the full publication here.