Can a cloned brain be conscious.

Gary Neal
Gary Neal
Nov 8 · 2 min read

I think, therefore I am

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Mini human brains or organoids as they are known, have been developed from human stem cells and are causing a stir in the scientific world. The worry is, that these mini-brains could develop a form of consciousness.

Neuroscientist Alysson Muotri grew the organoids from human stem cells. He used gene editing, using a Neanderthal genome as his source. This particular genome has been linked to autism and schizophrenia. The organoids developed into structures akin to the cerebral cortex which is responsible for memory, perception, cognition, thought and sensory processing. The cerebral cortex plays a key role in neuropsychiatric diseases such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Muotri was using them for studying genetic diseases such as autism and epilepsy.

Effectively, they were 3D tissue cultures that modelled a patient’s brain cells in a petri dish. They grew no bigger than 5 or 6mm, their growth restricted by the lack of nutrients and oxygen.

What intrigued scientists, was the development of neurons with active synapses, with activity patterns similar to premature babies. Furthermore, these organoids developed in a similar fashion to fetal brains. Their curiosity was aroused by the appearance of retinal cells, which responded when exposed to light. Did they see the light? (Whether these cells followed them round the laboratory is open to conjecture).

None of this is consciousness, but the scientific community is starting to question where future development may lead. Memories are still fresh of the Chinese scientist He Jianku who engineered mutations in two human embryos to produce twin girls with edited genomes.

Mini-brains do not grow to any size because they lack the blood supply to carry nutrients and oxygen. Solve that problem and you might be able to grow a full-size human brain.

Would a full-size human brain, artificially grown, develop consciousness? I think, therefore I am. The ethical dilemmas don’t bear thinking about.

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