{"id":22288,"date":"2025-10-27T03:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T22:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:09:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:39:27","slug":"lab-grown-minibrains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/lab-grown-minibrains\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab-grown Minibrains"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Lab-grown Minibrains<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>These are scientifically known as <strong>brain organoids,<\/strong> but often called <strong>&#8220;minibrains<\/strong>&#8221; and serve as miniature, simplified models of full-size human brains.<\/li>\n<li><strong>How are minibrains made?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Scientists typically grow brain organoids from <strong>stem cells<\/strong>, a type of immature <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/cell-structure-and-organelles\/\" target=\"_blank\">cell<\/a> that can give rise to any cell type, whether blood, skin, bowel or brain.<\/li>\n<li>The stem cells used to grow organoids can either come from <strong>adult human<\/strong> cells, or more rarely, <strong>human embryonic tissue.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Scientists collect adult cells and then expose them to chemicals in order to revert them into a stem cell-like state. The resulting stem cells are called &#8220;<strong>induced pluripotent stem cells<\/strong>&#8221; (iPSC), which can be made to grow into any kind of tissue.<\/li>\n<li>To give rise to a minibrain, scientists embed these stem cells in a protein-rich matrix, a substance that supports the cells as they divide and form a 3D shape. Alternatively, the cells may be grown atop a physical, 3D scaffold.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Application:<\/strong> These organoids can potentially be useful in basic research, drug development and even computer science.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What are Stem Cells?<\/h3>\n<p>These are cells with the potential to develop into many different types of cells in the body. Under the right conditions in the body or a laboratory, stem cells divide to form more cells called daughter cells. These daughter cells become either new stem cells or specialized cells (differentiation) with a more specific function, such as blood cells, brain cells, heart muscle cells or bone cells.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/health\/neuroscience\/lab-grown-minibrains-help-reveal-why-traumatic-brain-injury-raises-dementia-risk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Lab-grown &#8216;minibrains&#8217; help reveal why traumatic brain injury raises dementia risk<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lab-grown minibrains are scientifically known as brain organoids, but often called &#8220;minibrains&#8221; and serve as miniature, simplified models of full-size human brains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}