Can we grow a conscious brain?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science

4.8 • 985 Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2021

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Philosophers have long pondered the concept of a brain in a jar, hooked up to a simulated world. Though this has largely remained a thought experiment, CrowdScience listener JP wants to know if it might become reality in the not-too-distant future, with advances in stem cell research.

In the two decades since stem cell research began, scientists have learned how to use these cells to create the myriad of cell types in our bodies, including those in our brains, offering researchers ways to study neurological injuries and neurodegenerative disorders. Some labs have actually started 3D printing stem cells into sections of brain tissue in order to study specific interactions in the brain. Human brain organoids offer another way to study brain development and diseases from autism to the Zika virus.

So, might stem cell research one day lead to a fully-grown human brain, or is that resolutely in the realm of science fiction? If something resembling our brains is on the horizon, is there any chance that it could actually become conscious? And how would we even know if it was?

Host Marnie Chesterton takes a peek inside the human brain and speaks with leading scientists in the field, including a philosopher and ethicist who talks about the benefits – and potential pitfalls – of growing human brain models. Along the way, we'll pull apart the science from what still remains (at least for now) fiction.

Presented by Marnie Chesterton Produced by Sam Baker for BBC World Service Assistant Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.
0:09.0	In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?
0:16.0	Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.
0:20.0	A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by their own light, and that light is to be
0:24.9	recognised by others.
0:26.5	The Long History of Heroism with me, Rory Stewart.
0:29.5	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:33.2	Yeah, that's a brain slice.
0:37.2	That's an entire brain.
0:39.3	There's just dozens of brains on this shelf in front of me.
0:44.3	This is the part of the UCL Pathology Museum,
0:48.3	which contains all of our brain specimens.
0:51.3	The oldest specimens we have are from the 1820s and the newest are from the late
0:57.2	20th century. And the specimens here were collected to show different types of illness and disease
1:03.6	and how it affects the body specifically to teach medical students. I'm looking at a part of a human that was once upon a time, this was the bit of them
1:15.6	that made them feel joy and pain and love.
1:19.6	So in this jar was a personality once upon a time and now it's still a brain, but it's a collection of cells that just sits on a shelf here at university college London's pathology collections and I can't help but wonder if we had the power to reconnect it if we could get all of those neurons fizzing and firing again I wonder wonder what stories it could tell. Also, I'm
1:47.0	pretty sure that's not actually how brains work, but it's fun to imagine, right? You're listening
1:52.6	to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. I'm Marnie Chesterton, and this is the show that's
1:57.5	unafraid to ask questions that walk the line between science and science fiction.
2:01.6	So I guess this brain in front of me is actually an ex-brain.
2:05.6	It looks like the ones in our heads, but for this one, any hope of consciousness has gone.
	...

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