If you grow a brain in a lab, will it have a mind of its own?

Pedro_P

As our ability to create organs expands, ethical questions come into play.
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A brain in a jar, duh.
Kaushik Narasimhan
There are lots of reasons one might want to grow brains. For starters, they would allow us to study human neurological issues in detail, which is otherwise quite challenging to do. Neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s have devastated millions of people, and brains in a jar (so to speak) could allow us to study disease progression and test potential medications.
The prospect of a lab-grown brain is so compelling that the authors of an editorial in Naturepublished this week wrote that “the promise of brain surrogates is such that abandoning them seems itself unethical, given the vast amount of human suffering caused by neurological and psychiatric disorders, and given that most therapies for these diseases developed in animal models fail to work in people.”
But there’s a problem. The closer we get to growing a full human brain, the more ethically risky it  becomes.
The editorial co-authors note, however, that we have to grapple with these issues now. Given how tantalizing—and genuinely beneficial—the promise of lab-grown brains is, they write that we can almost be certain that we will, at some point, grow a whole brain. We’re far from that point—all we can do now is grow clumps of brain cells—but now is the time to consider the ethics. The authors advocate for careful consideration by lawmakers, bioethicists, researchers, and any other experts who’ll have a say.
And there’s one more group who should be thinking about these issues: you all. Yes, you, the readers of this piece, should start rolling these ideas in your mind.  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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soothsayer

what an idea. Exciting but terrifying!

parivijesh100

At least many politicians will get benefit of this option.

niya

so can this lab grown brain act by self?or it will need a body?will it function like that of an amoeba ?how will
it take in oxygen if not attached to a body?if the lab grown brain is substituted on a dysfunctional brain will
the memories of the patient who is getting the replacement be still intact?or it will be like a blank slate that needs
to be reprogrammed ?

Theskpd

Surely it will work but may it have emotions too...Not sure as emotions are result of compassion and empathy.

Mitu.delghy

Its scary. It sounds like body without soul.

Chang Tikhak

Wow...splendid..

ebookreader

A new kind of organic Watson !!!