PCL102H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Embryonic Stem Cell, Cerebral Cortex, Cdk5Rap2
1 Feb 2018
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Done by the obama administration"s neuroscience initiative. New technology to better understand brain circuits. Cant start analyzing human organs for ethical reasons. Reports in scientific journals have started to trickle in on the way stem cells can spontaneously organize themselves into complex brain tissue what some researchers have dubbed mini-brains. Thinks its important to be doing this work to understand brain development and disease. Need a model of the brain - cant just take humans and put them under the microscope. Esp. for studying effects of particular genes. But we still need to understand human specific features. We can grow human embryonic stem cells in cultures. Can form alot of different cell types. Japan and austalia got stem cells to form shapes in culture that look like pieces of the body. Make stem cells look like early human cerebral cortex. Create a mutation in mouse and find out about disease mechanism.
