Opinion: STAT+: What to think about those mice with half-human brains

Paul Knoepfler, a professor of cell biology and human anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine and author of STAT's Lab Dish column on regenerative medicine, writes that his own team has injected human stem cells into mice brains before, but the new research goes well beyond that.

He frames the larger question: what would happen if scientists generated a lab mouse whose brain was substantially human? Would it be really smart, or would it have a different kind of consciousness? Until now, Knoepfler notes, such ideas mostly belonged to fiction such as "Flowers for Algernon" or the cartoon "Pinky and the Brain."

Science is now catching up with fiction, he writes. A team led by Stanford professor Sergiu Pașca reported in Nature on the development of a mouse with a cortex made of human brain cells. Knoepfler says reading the paper initially gave him a combination of "wow" and "whoa" reactions, because the unique human cortex is a major factor in what makes us human and is the center of complex thought. The piece is a STAT+ exclusive, with the remainder behind a paywall.