Your brain may actually be two brains in one

A study published in Nature Neuroscience finds that the brain's front and back sections develop from entirely different progenitor cells, not the shared cell type long assumed by scientists. Stanford researchers traced the split to gastrulation, identifying Otx2-expressing cells that form the forebrain and midbrain, and Gbx2-expressing cells that form the hindbrain, with no overlap between the two.

The hindbrain controls automatic survival functions like breathing, swallowing and heartbeat, but scientists have struggled for years to grow its neurons in a lab, hampering research into ALS and spinal muscular atrophy. Using the new findings, researchers coaxed human stem cells into functional hindbrain motor neurons for the first time, producing cells with the right electrical activity and proteins.

The team also found the same two-part developmental pattern in chickens, zebrafish, acorn worms and even jellyfish, suggesting an evolutionary origin stretching back 600 to 700 million years. Researchers say the model could help them study how ALS and SMA damage brain stem tissue, which cannot be sampled from living patients.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.