Commentary on More Drastic Scenarios of Partial Brain and Full Body Replacement

Is outright replacement of tissues a viable option for the treatment of aging? There are factions within the longevity-interested community who think that the paths to either (a) engineering replacement brain tissue for parts of the brain not involved in memory, or (b) transplantation of an old head onto a young body or brain into a young body, are short enough to be worth pursuing, where "short enough" means a few decades of work given sufficient funding. To my mind, major surgery of the sort implied by replacement of large sections of tissue or entire organs is something to be avoided in later life, given the risks and cost. It is better to pursue a strategy of introducing new stem cells or repairing existing cell populations, a more gentle approach that would avoid the need for surgery, and at this point doesn't seem to require a much longer timeline for development. Brain or cerebral organoids are very specific neuronal cell cultures that were developed from human-induced pluripotent stem cell cultures, but with a slightly modified protocol. Grown spheroids of pluripotent stem cell cultures can be integrated within special solubilized membrane matrices which can support growing cells in a 3D environment, hence, producing organoids. Several scientific publications have already successfully shown that such cerebral organoid cultures present diverse populations of neurons and display processes like cortical development and cell migration. They also excrete their own...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs