🇺🇸 영어 원문
Neuroscientists in the US have successfully adapted mice to have functioning human cells inside their own brains.
The researchers hope that potential treatments for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases that only occur in humans could now be tested on the laboratory rodents.
While mice with brains that are partly human might sound like a Kafkaesque experiment, the scientists said these are not "mice that think like humans".
The animals are genetically engineered – and surgically altered – so that some of their brain tissue is human.
The scientists said their work, published in the journal Nature, was carried out with independent ethical scrutiny.
The aim of this ethically complicated breakthrough was to better understand the biology of brain disorders for which there are currently no effective treatments.
Some conditions cannot be studied in a mouse, simply because rodents do not develop some of the brain disorders that we do.
Lead researcher Prof Sergiu Pașca from Stanford University explained that psychiatry has "one of the lowest success rates for clinical trials".
He added that drugs that seem to work in animal models can fail dramatically in clinic, showing that scientists are missing a lot of information about human biology.
The Stanford researchers said that, for some complex conditions, including epilepsy, autism and cerebral palsy, the work has the potential to be "transformative".
Pașca said: "Here we have a new model that allows us to actually capture aspects of human brain function in a way that has not been possible before."
The human brain is made up of billions of cells, interconnected in millions of circuits, making it difficult to understand its development and what exactly is happening at the cellular level when things go wrong.
While this research is not the first time human neurons have been implanted in laboratory rodents, these scientists took that approach to a new level.
First, they genetically engineered mice to develop almost none of their own cerebral cortex – the outer layer of the brain sometimes referred to as "grey matter". It handles higher-level thinking, memory and senses.
The researchers then used skin cells taken from humans and reprogrammed them, so they grew into pieces of brain-like tissue. These structures are called organoids.
🇰🇷 한국어 요약
미국 뇌과학자들이 실험용 쥐의 뇌 안에 사람 세포가 기능하도록 만든 과학 연구가 BBC에 소개됐어요. 연구자들은 쥐가 사람처럼 생각하게 만드는 것이 아니라, 사람한테서만 나타나는 정신 건강이나 뇌 발달 질환을 더 잘 이해하기 위해 이런 방법을 사용했어요. 연구팀은 쥐가 스스로 대뇌피질을 거의 만들지 못하도록 유전적으로 바꾸고, 사람의 피부 세포를 뇌 조직처럼 자라게 한 뒤 이식했어요. 이렇게 만든 조직을 오가노드라고 불러요. 이 연구는 뇌전증(간질), 자폐, 뇌성마비 같은 복잡한 질환의 치료법을 찾는 데 도움이 될 수 있다고 하지만, 동물 실험과 사람 세포를 섞는 윤리 문제도 함께 논의하고 있어요.
🔑 핵심 단어 (Vocabulary)
- neuroscientists – 뇌과학자들 – Neuroscientists in the US have successfully adapted mice…
- psychiatric – 정신의학적 – potential treatments for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases…
- genetically engineered – 유전적으로 조작된 – The animals are genetically engineered…
- ethical scrutiny – 윤리적 검토 – their work… was carried out with independent ethical scrutiny
- clinical trials – 임상 시험 – psychiatry has "one of the lowest success rates for clinical trials".
- transformative – 혁신적인 – … has the potential to be "transformative".
- implanted – 이식된 – human neurons have been implanted in laboratory rodents
- brain-like tissue – 뇌 유사 조직 – they grew into pieces of brain-like tissue.
- cerebral cortex – 대뇌피질 – develop almost none of their own cerebral cortex…
- organoids – 오가노이드 (장기 유사 조직) – These structures are called organoids.
🔗 원문 링크
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c60m3k28j81mo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss