The Stanford University breakthrough stands to open new doors for research into fatal neurodegenerative diseases

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52109808

The human brain is not a single organ, but two separate systems that evolved independently before fusing together, according to groundbreaking new research. … Armed with the knowledge of how hindbrain cells uniquely form, the team has successfully turned human stem cells into becoming functional hindbrain motor neurons in a lab for the first time.

  • melfie@lemmy.zipEnglish
    302·
    23 hours ago

    Turns out they were separate organs after all, despite confounding evidence to the contrary:

    • M137@lemmy.todayEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      I tried finding a vagina version of this but searching “brain vagina” got some real weird results. Lots of furry and odd anime stuff.

  • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    351·
    1 day ago

    I’m going to start saying “that’s a one-brainer” to describe decisions that are simple but not quite obvious.

  • solrize@lemmy.mlEnglish
    261·
    1 day ago

    Yeah this is pretty cool. The front part of the brain develops from a different progenitor cell than the brain stem. There has been a ton of difficulty over the years trying to grow hindbrain cells from forebrain progenitors. It’s because they were using the wrong progenitors. So they may be able to make more progress treating hindbrain conditions like ALS. I have no idea why nobody tried this decades ago but there’s probably a reason.

    • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      14 hours ago

      We knew the forebrain and hindbrain were different. This research shows that the difference is OLD, and likely from when the brain was more distributed. They also found that, while they function in almost the same way, they are built from different genetic tool kits.

      Basically, we knew there was a difference. This explains what the difference is and how to work around the problems it has created.

  • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    1 day ago

    Member that time ‘scientists’ discovered lymph nodes in the brain and it was like 2014 or something? And everybody was all, “Did you not think to look there, or . . ?” How did we get 20k years in and not know that.

    But, that’s the way the knowledge bounces.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      22·
      23 hours ago

      Because we fund basically jack shit of scientific investigation that is just for the sake of investigation. A vast majority of funding is purpose driven which puts big blinders on the field. Failure of this type of idea could easily end the career of a new investigator or postdoc.

      There’s a lot to rant about the state of modern research but a lack of funding is nearly always the biggest reason for why something seemingly obvious in hindsight wasn’t discovered earlier.

  • gastroglizzy@piefed.socialEnglish
    38·
    14 hours ago

    I think this lends a lot more credibility to the idea that the two halves of ancient humans’ brains weren’t connected (called the “bicameral mind”), and references to “gods” during that time period were hallucinations from the disconnected half.

    References to “the gods abandoning me/us” were people describing what it was like to experience the two halves connect, leading to the disappearance of the hallucinations.

    References to searching for people who are “still connected to the gods” means they’re looking for people who still have a bicameral mind and experience the hallucinations.