Organoids, how are they making brain waves?

Organoids Are Not Brains, How

Are They Making Brain Waves?

By Carl Zimmer (August 29, 2019, NYT)

"The clusters, called brain organoids, had been grown a

few weeks earlier in the biologist’s lab here at the

University of California, San Diego. He[Alysson Muotri]

and his colleagues altered human skin cells into stem cells,

then coaxed them to develop as brain cells do in an embryo.

on Thursday, Dr. Muotri and his colleagues reported that

they have recorded simple brain waves in these organoids.

"Here at U.C.S.D., researchers are using them to recreate,

in miniature, inherited brain disorders and brain infections.

They are also trying to grow bigger, more complex brain

organoids. In one recent experiment, scientists linked a

brain organoid and a spider-shaped robot, so that the two

could exchange signals.

"In 2006 Shinya Yamanaka, a biologist at Kyoto University

in Japan, opened a new way to study human brains. He

found a cocktail of four proteins that can turn ordinary skin

cells into stem cells, which then have the potential to turn

into neurons, muscles or blood cells.

Building on that advance, other researchers learned to get

stem cells to grow like miniature organs in a dish. And

in 2013, a team of researchers in Austria succeeded in

producing small, short-lived brain organoids for the first

time.

"Dr. Negraes and her colleagues began working with

brain wave experts, and they found some similarities

between the organoids and the brains of premature infants.

The babies and the organoids both produced bursts of

synchronized activity, followed by quiet lulls."