neural chimera research requires material from human donors. Questions about consent and how to properly inform people that their cells could be reprogrammed into nurons. Another concern is the unpredictable behavior of human embryonic stem cells placed into an animal embryo, and whether they could grow out of control.
The development of brain chimaeras – made up of human and animal neurons – is an area of research that has hugely expanded in the past five years. Proponents say that these systems are yielding important insights into health and disease, but others say the chimeras represent an ethical grey zone, because of the potential to blur the line between humans and other animals, or to recapitulate human-like cognition in an animal.
This is an audio version of our Feature: Hybrid brains: the ethics of transplanting human neurons into animals
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