Development of human brain from stem cells

A team of European scientists from the University of Bonn and the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna have developed small three-dimensional human brains of 4mm in diameter frompluripotent stem cells that will help further the study of neurological diseases, reported the science magazine Nature. 



 

The complexity of the human brain has prevented further progress in the study of neurological diseases,so it was "necessary to provide a cellular system to simulate the complex characteristics of this organ to be able to study it in depth" explained JuergenKnoblich, the head of the project. "This approach can overcome some of the limitations that we found when we experimented with animal brains, since they do not share the same peculiarities as the human brain", he added.