The implantation of organs and tissues is not a new thing in science. The so-called cortical kits have been around for several days. These are artificially grown brain cellular organelles, which are, in fact, "a piece of the brain in miniature." They are used, for example, to study schizophrenia. But recently, an unprecedented experiment was carried out in which such a "miniature brain" was implanted in mice.
The experimental rodent in this case acted as a "donor" of blood and nutrients for the small brain. It is worth noting that artificial cerebral organelles existed before, but they lived in laboratory conditions for no more than 5 weeks. In the course of the current experiment, this figure was increased to 233 days. Moreover, these cells grew and developed, and after about 50 days, about 80% of the implanted tissues had successfully engrafted. But that's not all: receiving blood and nutrients, the organelles began to grow new neurons, including some highly specialized brain cells.
As already mentioned, cerebral organelles are used primarily to diagnose schizophrenia, but this technology can be applied to other tasks. For example, it will be possible to create cortical kits for people with brain damage or developmental problems of brain tissue and transplant the “missing parts”.
Someone may have a question: did human cells affect the consciousness of a mouse? Scientists say no. The behavior of the mice with the implant did not differ from the behavior of ordinary rodents, and during the memory test, some individuals, although they made fewer mistakes, nevertheless, their performance did not differ much from that of ordinary mice.
Vladimir Kuznetsov