+
Heroes

It took 12 weeks to grow this tiny brain in a petri dish. It could revolutionize neuroscience.

Imagine a brain ravaged by neurological disease. Now imagine winding back the clock to before the damage was done.

I'm not trying to bum you out, I swear! Just picture it for a second.


Not much to look at, is it? Photo by DJ_/Flickr.

What if you knew that a person — or their brain, specifically — was almost guaranteed to develop a serious disease? Imagine what doctors could learn by watching it grow and develop, knowing precisely what to look for from the beginning. They'd chart and study it at every milestone, and they'd be able to pinpoint exactly when, and maybe exactly why, things started to go wrong.

From there, who knows what might happen. It could lead to big breakthroughs in treatment for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It could even lead to a cure.

Amazingly, we just got a little bit closer to that reality.

A team at The Ohio State University has grown a near-complete human brain in a petri dish. And it could give us some incredible answers.

Dr. Rene Anand took human skin cells and, over the course of about 12 weeks, turned them into a brain on par with about 99% of what you'd find in a five-week-old fetus.

Don't worry; the brain, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, isn't conscious. "We don't have any sensory stimuli entering the brain. This brain is not thinking in any way," Anand said. (Good to know it won't be plotting our demise any time soon.)

But it does have pretty much everything else that makes a brain a brain, including a spinal cord, a retina, and all the proper circuitry. The only thing it's missing is a heart to pump blood through it, but Dr. Anand hopes to hook the brain up to an artificial one someday soon.

Simply put, it's the most complete model of the human brain ever created. Before this, the best we'd ever done was still missing some pretty important stuff (you gotta have that cerebellum), and before that, the best we could muster were some replica rat brains.

Why go through all the trouble of growing a brain from scratch? Because it sure beats the alternatives.

An fMRI can't compete with poking and prodding a real, live brain. Photo by Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images.

There's so much that we don't know about the human brain. OK, so we know it looks like a chewed-up piece of gum. And that it starts to hurt when we stare at long division problems too long.

But what really happens to our brains when we get a concussion? What causes Parkinson's? How can we prevent strokes? Those are the questions that this brain might answer.

Dr. Anand hasn't yet given a full description of how he got skin cells to grow into a three-dimensional brain. (Previous teams have had some success with little tiny scaffolds for the cells to climb and grow on — kind of like itty-bitty jungle gyms.) But assuming his methods can be duplicated by others, and personalized (that's right! one day they might be able to grow a little replica of your very own brain), we could be on the verge of a really exciting future.

At the very least, these lab-created brains will give us a way to test new drugs on the human nervous system rather than on animals. It's more humane and much more effective. We'll also be able to find clues behind the causes of certain diseases, catch things we can't see in postmortem exams, and spot things we can only see through expensive and invasive testing.

Dr. Anand also says that his team's "organoid" brain might not be done growing. It could turn into a full, 100% genetic replica of a small fetus brain.

That's still pretty tiny, but it's room enough to hold a whole new world of possibility.

via Pexels

A woman sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat

Everyone wants to know how long they will live and there are many indicators that can show whether someone is thriving or on the decline. But people have yet to develop a magic formula to determine exactly how long someone should expect to live.

However, a doctor recently featured on the "Today" show says a straightforward test can reveal the likelihood that someone aged 51 to 80 will die in the near future.

NBC News medical contributor Dr. Natalie Azar was on the "Today" show on March 8 and demonstrated how to perform the simple “sit to stand test” (aka sit-rising test or SRT) that can help determine the longevity of someone between 51 to 80.

Keep ReadingShow less

Know the signs of a domestic abuser.

Most abusers don't start their relationships by hitting their partners. That's why early warning signs are vital to recognize.

I know two women who recently left abusive partners. Both men seemed sweet and likable—even gentle—each time I saw them. Both had some lovely qualities as people and even as partners. And both turned out to be controlling, increasingly abusive partners behind closed doors.


Keep ReadingShow less

Jimmy Fallon of the Tonight Show.

High schools are a perfect breeding ground for weirdness. First of all, you have a bunch of teenagers who are starting to deal with adult problems but they don’t have the experience or the brain development to figure out how to navigate complex feelings and relationships.

Then you add sex, drugs, learner’s permits, the stress of trying to get into college and really bad facial hair to the situation and you have all the ingredients for people and situations to go completely sideways.

Then there are the teachers. High school teachers tend to be a bit more eccentric than those in the younger grades because they are hired as specialists in a given field, such as history, math or science. Whereas teachers in younger grades have to be nurturing and have a more holistic approach to child development.

Keep ReadingShow less
Identity

Here’s why you look better in mirrors than you do in pictures

A scientific breakdown that explains why it's so hard to take a good selfie.

SOURCE: iSTOCK

Usually the greatest fear after a wild night of partying isn't what you said that you might regret, but how you'll look in your friends' tagged photos. Although you left the house looking like a 10, those awkward group selfies make you feel more like a 5, prompting you to wonder, "Why do I look different in pictures?"

It's a weird phenomenon that, thanks to selfies, is making people question their own mirrors. Are pictures the "real" you or is it your reflection? Have mirrors been lying to us this whole time??

Keep ReadingShow less

Where is the live action movie already?

What do you get when you mix artificial intelligence with editing software?

Mind-blowing images, apparently.

Brazilian digital artist Hidreley Leli Dião creates ultra realistic portraits of beloved cartoon characters as well as historical figures.

Keep ReadingShow less

TikTok about '80s childhood is a total Gen X flashback.

As a Gen X parent, it's weird to try to describe my childhood to my kids. We're the generation that didn't grow up with the internet or cell phones, yet are raising kids who have never known a world without them. That difference alone is enough to make our 1980s childhoods feel like a completely different planet, but there are other differences too that often get overlooked.

How do you explain the transition from the brown and orange aesthetic of the '70s to the dusty rose and forest green carpeting of the '80s if you didn't experience it? When I tell my kids there were smoking sections in restaurants and airplanes and ashtrays everywhere, they look horrified (and rightfully so—what were we thinking?!). The fact that we went places with our friends with no quick way to get ahold of our parents? Unbelievable.

Keep ReadingShow less