Newsflash: Human Brain Cells Grown in Lab Mice.

"They're Pinky and the Brain 
Yes, Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius, 
the other's insane.
They're laboratory mice,
Their genes have been spliced,
They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain..." 

For those of you not aware of the above ditty, it comes from a segment on an old (but very good) cartoon called Animaniacs. Listen to it here. The "Pinky and the Brain" shorts involved two lab mice who had been enhanced into super-intelligent, talking rodents, one of whom was hell-bent on taking over the world using various wacky means.  Now that we're putting human brain cells in rodents, there is a very good chance that mice, becoming ever more like humans, may well start taking over the world.

"May 3, 2013 — A key type of human brain cell developed in the laboratory grows seamlessly when transplanted into the brains of mice, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that these cells might one day be used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and possibly even Alzheimer's disease, as well as and complications of spinal cord injury such as chronic pain and spasticity. 

"We think this one type of cell may be useful in treating several types of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders in a targeted way," said Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF and co-lead author on the paper.

The researchers generated and transplanted a type of human nerve-cell progenitor called the medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) cell, in experiments described in the May 2 edition of Cell Stem Cell. Development of these human MGE cells within the mouse brain mimics what occurs in human development, they said.

...

To generate MGE cells in the lab, the researchers reliably directed the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells -- either human embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells derived from human skin. These two kinds of stem cells have virtually unlimited potential to become any human cell type. When transplanted into a strain of mice that does not reject human tissue, the human MGE-like cells survived within the rodent forebrain, integrated into the brain by forming connections with rodent nerve cells, and matured into specialized subtypes of interneurons.

...

"The hope is that we can deliver these cells to various places within the nervous system that have been overactive and that they will functionally integrate and provide regulated inhibition," Nicholas said.

One mystery and challenge to both the clinical and pre-clinical study of human MGE cells is that they develop at a slower, human pace, reflecting an "intrinsic clock." In fast-developing mice, the human MGE-like cells still took seven to nine months to form interneuron subtypes that normally are present near birth.

"If we could accelerate the clock in human cells, then that would be very encouraging for various applications," Kriegstein said." - Source with more.

Of course, the scientists are doing this to cure neurological disorders, That includes everything from autism to back issues. The result might still be mice with the intellects of human children, if the internal clock is to be believed.

That said, Pinky's more realistic.

Mind, this isn't quite gene splicing. It's a tissue implant of human cells into a rodent body. We really don't know what will happen with this; the neurotransplant technique is only a couple of years old. Give it time; they'll try to take over the world eventually. If the enhanced mice start talking and one of them starts saying "narf," we'll know for sure that these scientists have seen Animaniacs.

Bio-Art: Brainbow.

A good friend of mine once suggested that paleontologists were exercising an inborn urge to pose dinosaur skeletons. This was in response to a comment I had made about scientists just plain wanting to make things glow in the dark for fun. Nowhere is this more firmly visible than in the "brainbow." That is not a misspelling - it's exactly what it sounds like.

Source. 

That, friends, is a "brainbow." It is a photograph of the brain of a genetically-engineered mouse. The rodent houses several different GFP types in its DNA. No PhotoShop was used in his image; it really does look like something one could see in a museum of modern art.

CBS Labs went even farther than GloFish in terms of making a single organism have perfect camouflage for a rave party. Anything with a "brainbow" has each neuron color-coded with a different fluorescent protein, each of which is derived from GFP. The end result looks like something a stoner would see at Christmas.

There is indeed a method to this psychedelic madness. By color-coding each neuron, it is possible to trace individual neuron pathways. Who said art was useless? This is functional and fashionable. Whether it is properly art or not is another issue entirely.

So, the question is once again if this is really art. The brainbow at the very least looks awesome. It does not ask anything by itself. This is your brain; this is your brain on a trip. That the trip happens to look awesome is more of a side-effect than anything, although no doubt the idea arose because someone thought it would look pretty. Chicken or the egg? You decide. 

Newsflash: Obama, Obama and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain.

The human mind is a tricky thing. If one section of the brain is kicked out of commission, another part will at least try to take over. The right and left halves of the brain are so intertwined that the whole right brain-left brain thing is really about as effective as that old taste bud map- which has been proven false, by the way.

Oh, and now we're trying to map the brain.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed an effort to map the brain's activity in unprecedented detail, as a step toward finding better ways to treat such conditions as Alzheimer's, autism, stroke and traumatic brain injuries.

He asked Congress to spend $100 million next year to start a project that will explore details of the brain, which contains 100 billion cells and trillions of connections.

That's a relatively small investment for the federal government — less than a fifth of what NASA spends every year just to study the sun — but it's too early to determine how Congress will react.
Obama said the so-called BRAIN Initiative could create jobs, and told scientists gathered in the White House's East Room that the research has the potential to improve the lives of billions of people worldwide.

"As humans we can identify galaxies light-years away," Obama said. "We can study particles smaller than an atom, but we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears."" - Source with more.

Obama has a valid point. Compared to other fields of science, we know very little about the human brain. However, out of every newsflash I've done so far, this one worries me the most.

Deeper studies of the human brain also lead to the distinct possibility of mind control - or at least manipulation the likes of which have never been seen before. We're talking the potential for mind control, here. Psychology is also used in advertising all the time; the fact that most fast food labels have red (the color that catches the human eye the most for a multitude of reasons) in them is a good example.

There is also a good chance that it won't work. A theory came up in my biology class: a system can never fully comprehend itself, or else it'll break. This could be 100 million spent to break our brains. Yep, such a nice idea. It could pave the way for cures to life-threatening diseases, or it could make the Flesh Machine become a real thing.