News Neuroscience

Clumps of human nerve cells thrived in rat brains

Increasingly complex organoids offer rare windows into human brain development

an organoid made of human nerve cells, shown in bright green, on the upper left side of a rat brain, shown in dark green

After transplantation into a rat brain, an organoid made of human nerve cells (bright green) grows and makes connections with its host.

Stanford University

By Laura Sanders

To coax human nerve cells in a laboratory to thrive, there are three magic words: location, location, location.

Many experiments grow human nerve cells in lab dishes. But a new study enlists some real estate that’s a bit more unconventional: the brain of a rat.