The Stanford University breakthrough stands to open new doors for research into fatal neurodegenerative diseases

The human brain is not a single organ, but two separate systems that evolved independently before fusing together, according to groundbreaking new research. … Armed with the knowledge of how hindbrain cells uniquely form, the team has successfully turned human stem cells into becoming functional hindbrain motor neurons in a lab for the first time.

    • naught@sh.itjust.works
      504·
      11 days ago

      The left/right brain thing has always been bunk. People have entire hemispheres removed with minimal negative consequences, personality changes, etc.

      • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        27·
        11 days ago

        The personality test stuff is bunk. Pretty sure the experiment with the one hand drawing something and the other hand doesn’t know are real.

        Are you sure people can have an entire hemisphere removed with minimal consequences? That sounds absolutely wild!

        • naught@sh.itjust.works
          15·
          11 days ago

          I learned this a while ago so I had to double check!

          In terms of postoperative motor function, some patients may have improvement or no change of their weaker extremity,[11] and many can walk independently.[13] Most patients postoperatively have minimal to no behavioral problems, satisfactory language skills, good reading capability,[13] and only a minority of patients have a decline in IQ.[14] Predictors of poor outcome may include seizure recurrence and structural abnormalities in the intact hemisphere.[13]

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy

        • Xraygoggles@lemmy.world
          6·
          10 days ago

          There are brain surgeries where you just chuck out the extra to get to the parts you want to work on, eloquent vs non-eloquent tissue. And epilepsy surgery where they completely disconnect the halves. Recently read a pretty good book on this.

          If you skip the first chapter, and then stop once he starts talking about anything other than neuroscience The Immortal Mind is a great overview of this by an extremely talented neurosurgeon who has dog shit views on literally everything else. Still worth it for the good parts but I warned you.

  • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
    36·
    11 days ago

    Pretty cool stuff. It’s been well understood for a while that lower brain function governs things like hunger sex and lower animal functions and the frontal cortex governs higher reasoning. Crazy they might have been separate organs at one point.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    154·
    11 days ago

    Now all the people who believe in brain/body dualism are going to have to decide which brain is the cockpit for our homoucli. The good news is that cryogenics is going to get cheaper now that we only have to freeze half of the brain.

  • xep@discuss.online
    71·
    10 days ago

    We barely know anything about the human brain and yet some proclaim that they’re making an artificial general intelligence based on a algorithm that purportedly mimics it.

  • ExtraJudgement@lemmy.world
    6·
    10 days ago

    Maybe I’m too sleep deprived, but why does “built from two blueprints” equal “is two organs”? When the two base components fuse they become one self-contained unit.

    • Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      10 days ago

      To expand on what frongt said. An organ is a collection of specialized tissues that performs certain specific tasks. The stomach is an organ, the pancreus is an organ, and together they are part of a system. If the brain is more than one organ, we can target specific parts in the tissue differences for lab cell growth (as the article suggests), targeted medicine delivery (due to differences in autonomic braincell makup vs frontal and temporal processing tissues), and the next step in research will probably be how the two brain organs develop connections which could lead to nerve pathway repair (typically very hard to achieve).

    • hansolo@lemmy.today
      4·
      10 days ago

      It’s that the brain stem is made of different cells than the forebrain and midbrain. You can’t grow a full brain from one sample of cells. So, it’s considered 2 different organs.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
      41·
      10 days ago

      They don’t fuse. They’re connected, yes, but so is everything in your body.

    • FirstCircle@lemmy.mlEnglish
      62·
      11 days ago

      The human brain structure is believed to have once mirrored the nervous networks observed in jellyfish

      It’s a shame that humans didn’t evolve more intelligence than our Jelly friends.

  • xSikes@feddit.onlineEnglish
    83·
    11 days ago

    And people said either I’m bipolar or just a classic Gemini. Now I’m just going to tell them about this recent study and tell them that hearing two voice in my head is normal.

      • bss03@infosec.pubEnglish
        2·
        10 days ago

        We seem to have at least two consciousness, but for most people one of them is almost entirely unable to communicate with the outside world, only the verbal consciousness.

        At least, it can observe and respond; I don’t know it has a subjective experience.

      • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        41·
        10 days ago

        So they developed seperately? I mean humans have to tend to their babies for years compare to lizards that probably have an effect love evolutionarily

        • qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          10 days ago

          I believe they were making a joke about different positions of intercourse, not actually answering the question. e.g. “Front” ≈ missionary on a normal day, and “hind” ≈ doggy when frisky.