Organoids Offer Clues to How Brains are Made in Humans and Chimpanzees

Rory Christian

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event 5

October 16, 2019

Sanders, Laura. “Organoids Offer Clues to How Brains Are Made in Humans and Chimpanzees.” Science News, 16 Oct. 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/organoids-brains-human-chimpanzee-development.   

It has been recently discovered that "brainlike blobs" can reveal similarities and differences among primate brain development. More technically defined as cerebral organoids, these three dimensional clumps of cells are used to replicate the complexity of an organ and can provide insight into early brain development in humans and chimpanzees. To make these cerebral organoids from chimpanzees, cells were first extracted from the blood a typical blood draw. White blood cells in these vials were then programmed to become stem cells and finally arranged into blobs of brain cells. "From that, we get something that really looks a lot like the early brain," says Gray Camp, a stem cell biologist at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel in Switzerland. After examining the human and chimpanzee organoids, there was no obvious difference in the appearance. However, a look at how the genes behaved in the two organoids, and how it changed over time, sparked interest in the scientists. For one, chimpanzee organoids and nerve cells appeared to mature faster than the human ones. Although it has always been known that humans take longer to develop when compared to other species, this comparison especially emphasized it. The alignment of the different growth times allowed the scientists to explore the genes that behaved differently for each species and the difference in DNA usage. It was found that some stretches of DNA are missing in people, but present in chimpanzees. Areas of the chimpanzee that contained these stretches, were ready to act on certain proteins that allowed for a faster development rate.

This development is significant in the world of neuroscience and even evolution. Understanding how and why our brain differs from species that we are closely related to, is important in the development of science and brain development. "Studies of organoids hold promise, particularly for their ability to reveal developmental processes that would otherwise be hidden, such as the brain's earliest days as it develops in the womb," says Paola Arlotta, a neurobiologist at Harvard University. Although the "brain blobs" are only approximations of the real thing, they allow researches to compare and contrast the brain of humans with that of our closest primate.

This article was well written and informative and the summary overall was detailed and descriptive. I specifically enjoyed how engaging the article was; this was partly due to its excellent organization and clarity. There were, however, a few aspects that could be improved upon. The author included a descriptive summary of how the cerebral organoids were made from chimpanzees; however, they failed to describe how this was accomplished with the human ones. Although it is known that they are made from stem cells, I would have liked more of a description of this process. Finally, I was a little bit underwhelmed by the conclusion and results of the article. I would have liked to have seen a more detailed analysis of the findings and even a stronger conclusion. Overall, I found this article very compelling and excited for the future of neuroscience.