Viewpoint: ‘Organoid intelligence’?—Ethical questions arise in using organoid human brain nuggets to study disease

As months turned to years, Dr. Arlotta’s team set a record for the oldest documented brain organoids. “We never thought that we could go so far in time,” she said. They found that the organoids kept on maturing. The neurons in a five-year-old organoid resemble those of a kindergartner.

The entire field of brain organoid research is not much older than Dr. Arlotta’s kindergarten nuggets, but it is already exploding. … By growing brain organoids from … donated cells, they’re learning how genetic mutations alter neurons.

“It’s a whole new branch of science that was not there before,” she said. But …, she and 16 other scientists called for worldwide oversight of brain organoid research, to ensure that the field remains on safe ethical ground.

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Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist … will be there. He [plans] to share his concerns about how large-scale arrays of organoids created for computers might spontaneously gain some features of the human brain.

“If anything is going to support consciousness, it’s going to be something like that,” Dr. Hyun said.

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Dr. Hyun says there’s another question that’s more important to ask: Can an organoid suffer?

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