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coffeeandtrout t1_ismghg7 wrote

This is one of those experiments that makes me wonder why we should do this , but it almost seems like a way of studying the human brain, or creating a way to have an animal be used in the study of a living “human” brain without the risk of actually using a human. I don’t want human smart rats reacting the way humans do sometime in the future, but that’s way overthinking this. I did find it all interesting, but this trial in particular kind of gives an idea of how this research ca be beneficial to us as humans.

“The Stanford researchers, in fact, used their transplant technique to investigate Timothy syndrome, a rare genetic disorder in humans that can result in life-threatening abnormal heartbeats and may also lead to autism. They transplanted tissues derived from three people with Timothy syndrome into baby rat brains.

They found that those human cells didn’t grow as large inside the rats and weren't as structurally complex as the other human cells. That signaled to the researchers that the genetic mutations responsible for Timothy syndrome in people had impeded the rats’ brain development.

The researchers have yet to study how such mutations change rats’ behavior, however.”

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Literature-South t1_ismlxun wrote

If they can inject a rat brain with human brain cells and it assimilates, especially in an already developed rat brain, imagine what it could do for people. Inject brain matter to make yourself smarter? Maybe, but probably not? Inject brain matter into the brains of those with a traumatic brain injury or who are otherwise "brain dead"? Might bring people back from the dead. Who knows until we try it?

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Hobojo153 t1_ismr73h wrote

Point of view gun.

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makemenutraloaf t1_ismt8b3 wrote

I always wondered what would happen if you shot yourself with it

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asdaaaaaaaa t1_isnwkyi wrote

Maybe I'll finally understand why past me hates present and future me so much.

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cheetah_chrome t1_isq1q0e wrote

I’ve always been a total dick to future me. I really don’t care for him.

It’s worked out great for present me!

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janethefish t1_isn09xz wrote

> If they can inject a rat brain with human brain cells and it assimilates, especially in an already developed rat brain, imagine what it could do for people. Inject brain matter to make yourself smarter? Maybe, but probably not? Inject brain matter into the brains of those with a traumatic brain injury or who are otherwise "brain dead"? Might bring people back from the dead. Who knows until we try it?

You probably cant add a noticeable amount of brain mass/cells to a healthy human brain. There really isnt more room.

Any new cells would need to be trained. If you take someone from brain dead to brain alive by adding new brain cells, then you have a new person.

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Sentinel451 t1_isn51kv wrote

I think it'd be more of a therapy with mild to moderate improvement for people with TBIs, stroke victims, dementia, and so on. Not a cure, but may assist in retaining current cognitive abilities and perhaps gaining a bit back.

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UncleYimbo t1_isn9ixt wrote

Bro, I got the steps right here:

  1. obtain DNA from the remains of Albert Einstein, or Stephen Hawking, or Marie Curie, or whatever smart fucker you please

  2. Clone up some geniuses who get all the best schooling, free ride for life, with today's internet and technology to augment them

  3. Give them a billion dollars each for the trouble of being lab rats but after they are grown and as smart as can be, they agree to let us have a little blob of them good brains.

  4. rinse and repeat a few times until we have super geniuses. We can probably take genius sperm and genius eggs and made super brain babies too

  5. keep going along these routes for awhile and eventually save up tons of the very best brains we got

  6. clone the brains and implant them in every human at birth with a little syringe right in their soft spot

Boom. Humanity is saved. DM me my Nobel Prize.

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PuellaBona t1_isp40pb wrote

No, that's when the super geniuses decide that the universe would be better off without the human race. Boom. Apocalypse.

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UncleYimbo t1_ispg755 wrote

Well, I'm depressed so that'll work for me too

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Nauin t1_isoq73l wrote

My brain(lol) went immediately to Alzheimer's patients, since Alzheimer's causes your brain to quite literally erode away and makes the brain shrink significantly in mass.

No idea how this tech would work to help that, but still, they're the patients who need more neural connections. Especially the devastating early onset cases.

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Dranj t1_ismwrv8 wrote

I hate how they worded the paragraph about impeding brain development. The goal of the research wasn't to create a disease model in rats, it was to create a more accurate replication of cell morphology than previous in vitro models could produce.

Cell development is incredibly complex, as cells respond not only to their own genome, but also to extracellular signals such as chemical signals and mechanical stress. Over at least the past decade, one way to account for this has been to shift from growing cells on a flat surface to three dimensional structures often referred to as spheroids or organoids.

However, organoids still aren't perfect representations of an in vivo environment. The importance of the difference in neurons post implantation is that their integration into a rat brain has allowed them to more accurately portray the differences between a healthy neuron and one with Timothy Syndrome than seen in organoids that remain in a dish. It wasn't that the Timothy Syndrome expressing cells were affecting the rat brain, it's that their implantation allowed them to display their own expected morphological changes.

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EmbarrassedHelp t1_ismn0ph wrote

I wonder if you could slowly replace a living person's brain with newly grown cells to combat aging with this idea?

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Sanpaku t1_ismu3ea wrote

Ship of Theseus territory, but I'd volunteer for it.

The same brain plasticity that I had as a toddler? Shoot that straight into my Broca's area, I wasn't exposed to foreign languages til late in life, and largely failed in my attempts to become fluent in Spanish and French.

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lokicramer t1_ismrz3s wrote

If you created nanobots that could preform the same functions as living neurons, and had them slowly replace your own organic neurons, you could essentially become immortal.

If it happened slow enough, you wouldn't notice the change.

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noiamholmstar t1_ispkuvm wrote

Or would you slowly find yourself to be more of an observer of a fuzzier view of the world, becoming gradually more dream-like and less controlled, as more and more of your brain-function is replaced by artificial neurons? It might seem normal at first, but more and more often you might realize you were doing something without ever consciously planning to do it. Maybe a bit like zoning out while driving and realizing you don't really remember driving the last several minutes, but instead it's like losing the last few hours.

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asdaaaaaaaa t1_isnwhho wrote

>This is one of those experiments that makes me wonder why we should do this

I mean, you shove some rat brains in where my usual brain goes, I'd probably act different too. I'd imagine we'd have to bother the hell out of many rats to come to some sort of final/total conclusion with all this.

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Slapbox t1_isp994t wrote

The idea behind these experiments has generally been, as I understand it, to investigate the possibility that it's not only the human brain structure that is unique, but human brain cells as well.

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