Lab-grown Brain

This might look like fancy confectionary, but it’s actually the spongy scaffold in which a sophisticated type of lab-grown brain tissue was created. The sponge-like material, which is made from a protein found in silk, was formed into six differently coloured rings and seeded with neurons from a rat, while the middle was filled with collagen gel – much like a jam doughnut. Within days, the neurons had formed networks and projected nerve fibres through the gel to connect with neurons across the doughnut. After a few weeks, the centre had become a distinct region of white matter, packed with crisscrossing nerve fibres, while the rings resembled neuron-packed grey matter. When researchers dropped a weight onto the tissue, it responded with changes in electrical and chemical activity much like a real rat brain. Among other things, then, this brain-like tissue could be used to study how brains respond to traumatic injury.

Written by Daniel Cossins

Daniel Cossins

Writer

As a freelance science writer, Dan's work has been published in award-winning magazines including BBC Focus, Wired UK, Cosmos, BBC Knowledge, BBC History and Men's Health.

Website

• Image by David Kaplan and colleagues
• Tufts University, USA
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in PNAS, August 2014