this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Johns Hopkins University researchers have created the world's first whole-brain organoid that integrates tissues from all major brain regions, complete with rudimentary blood vessels and neural activity that mimics a 40-day-old human fetal brain. Published in Advanced Science, the breakthrough could transform how scientists study neuropsychiatric disorders and test new treatments.

The multi-region brain organoid (MRBO) represents a major advance over existing brain organoids, which typically replicate only single brain regions like the cortex or midbrain. "We've made the next generation of brain organoids," said lead researcher Annie Kathuria, an assistant professor in Johns Hopkins' Department of Biomedical Engineering. "Most brain organoids that you see in papers are one brain region, like the cortex or the hindbrain or midbrain. We've grown a rudimentary whole-brain organoid."

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[โ€“] drmoose@lemmy.world 48 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

I've been really intrigued by the ethics of this as theres a lot of organoid conspiracies online and from what i gathered be it 40 days of several months this type of "brain" doesnt actually develop to anything that could resemble conciousness and is widely considered to be ethical.

However this is purely based on emergent concisouness theory and if you're not entirely sold on that then we might be making human lab rats trapped in their endless mind forever to be experimented on which is pretty scary, maybe?

[โ€“] unknown@piefed.social 23 points 2 days ago

At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from the classic scifi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus.

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