Our regular readers might have noted that the development of organ-on-a-chip devices has become a popular research trend. Tiny living parts of real human organs can be sustained for long periods of time inside of specially designed chambers that feed the organoids and provide researchers a window to examine them under a microscope. All sorts of processes that are nearly impossible to study in living animals and humans can be observed and manipulated using organoids. The brain, in particular, is little known about and difficult to access, so researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, researchers have been using organoids to study it.
The investigators have been focusing lately on how and why the brain wrinkles, a phenomenon that seems related to a number of developmental disorders. The team grew and sustained human brain organoids for weeks at a time, documenting how the wrinkles form and that they seem to do so only when cell density and maximal nuclear strain reach certain levels. This is an important finding for neuroscience that may lead to new therapies, but the research has a greater impact because it demonstrates how brain organoids can now be utilized to study neurological conditions.
Here’s a couple beautiful videos showing the growth of the organoids:
Study in journal Nature Physics: Human brain organoids on a chip reveal the physics of folding…
Via: Weizmann Institute…
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