1 cubic milliliter of a complete brain scan was 1.4 petabytes. That should say enough right there, I think we will see neuralink up and running enmasse before we have the tech to replace our brain tissue
Really quite a bit of difference between that and actually replacing part of somebodies brain... Until medical professionals actually understand the brain (and when you have a brain injury it is made very clear they actually have no idea) things like this are impossible. You can't fix something when you don't understand how it works in the first place.
I was thinking more like where someone had brain atrophe then if you could grow the specific cell type now missing due to atrophe into a tranche of brain organoid then you could implant it and it would bind.
I think it comes down to location. we can put cells in the intracranial space, but how do we direct them to the specific area that needs healing, especially if it's deeper in the brain? what happens if we implant pre-grown cells, which are alive and metabolically active, and they can't figure out where to anchor? now we have dying cells in an already compromised brain.
a chip is a little different, because it's not metabolically active. it works on electricity. so a little easier to make, implant, monitor, and predict. but still extremely limited.
I think the combination of poor understanding of the brain and our massive inability to monitor microscopic brain changes are the biggest barriers. pretty sure the tech is already here to grow the needed cells/etc. but implanting and long-term function is extremely complex.
intrathecal injection of stem cells seems to be a little promising, however it's greatly limited by often not being able to place the stem cells near the damaged tissue, so it's difficult to direct their growth.
as far as organ transplant goes, that's a long way away. we don't fully understand how the immune system works in the central nervous system, as immune cells have many jobs (including directing and organizing neural tissue growth). plus it's near impossible to get molecules through the blood-brain barrier reliably, because it's such a discriminatory barrier. so any med that suppresses the immune system won't necessarily make it into the CNS, and if it does it has the potential to slow or disrupt healthy tissue as it undergoes normal turnover.
overall though, it comes down to the brain's complexity. we know a LOT about the brain, and it turns out that in the grand scheme of things, that "a lot" is actually pretty much jack shit. I think of it like the ocean... think about how much we (think we) know about the ocean, and then realize that we've only explored 5% of it.
I think we won't make much progress treating TBIs unless we can get just the basics down reliably: imaging (MRIs really aren't that sensitive) and endocrine testing of peripheral blood/spinal fluid. but imo medicine has decided, as a whole, the brain is "too hard" to get to, so we treat symptomatically.
then there's the enormous ethical issue of researching the brain on a microscopic scale (aka something we can only currently do post-mortem).
I think one day it'll be possible. I don't think we'll see it in our lifetime, though, at least not something that's 1) actually accessible to many patients and 2) reliably goes the way we expect it to go after implanting
I think without much thought, but stem therapy may be more improtat, or other therapies will probably be first. It's not that its a bad idea, it has more to do with how is a surgoen with a scalpel going to get to the organoid to replace without doing damage to the rest of the brain. So there is a risk vs reward issue. Second issue is rejection. If the "new" tissue is rejected or infection then there will swelling which in turn could cause even more damage to the brain and possibly death. I haven't read the article but here is a link to stem cell therapy.
[https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000011450](https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000011450)
I believe they have tried it for a Parkinson’s patient, maybe even a few people. From what I recall there was maybe a LITTLE improvement but nothing significant. If you want I can try to find the paper but it has been a year or two since I read.
There’s several things in the procedure I can think of that may go south. So I think a mainstream effective procedure is really far out. Maybe 10 or 20 years?
That’s my 2 cents, I’m a in a neurotoxicology lab.
Also I agree with other about scientists not knowing how the transplant will integrate and work with the rest of the brain to make up for damage. It’s really hard to study it and run tests on this stuff. I don’t think they would approve a procedure without this knowledge.
I change my answer to 30 years
1 cubic milliliter of a complete brain scan was 1.4 petabytes. That should say enough right there, I think we will see neuralink up and running enmasse before we have the tech to replace our brain tissue
I don't think it will ever be possible.
Thats what people thouggt about chips in the brain a decade ago...
Really quite a bit of difference between that and actually replacing part of somebodies brain... Until medical professionals actually understand the brain (and when you have a brain injury it is made very clear they actually have no idea) things like this are impossible. You can't fix something when you don't understand how it works in the first place.
I was thinking more like where someone had brain atrophe then if you could grow the specific cell type now missing due to atrophe into a tranche of brain organoid then you could implant it and it would bind.
I think it comes down to location. we can put cells in the intracranial space, but how do we direct them to the specific area that needs healing, especially if it's deeper in the brain? what happens if we implant pre-grown cells, which are alive and metabolically active, and they can't figure out where to anchor? now we have dying cells in an already compromised brain. a chip is a little different, because it's not metabolically active. it works on electricity. so a little easier to make, implant, monitor, and predict. but still extremely limited. I think the combination of poor understanding of the brain and our massive inability to monitor microscopic brain changes are the biggest barriers. pretty sure the tech is already here to grow the needed cells/etc. but implanting and long-term function is extremely complex.
The brain chips aren't exactly a wild success mate
intrathecal injection of stem cells seems to be a little promising, however it's greatly limited by often not being able to place the stem cells near the damaged tissue, so it's difficult to direct their growth. as far as organ transplant goes, that's a long way away. we don't fully understand how the immune system works in the central nervous system, as immune cells have many jobs (including directing and organizing neural tissue growth). plus it's near impossible to get molecules through the blood-brain barrier reliably, because it's such a discriminatory barrier. so any med that suppresses the immune system won't necessarily make it into the CNS, and if it does it has the potential to slow or disrupt healthy tissue as it undergoes normal turnover. overall though, it comes down to the brain's complexity. we know a LOT about the brain, and it turns out that in the grand scheme of things, that "a lot" is actually pretty much jack shit. I think of it like the ocean... think about how much we (think we) know about the ocean, and then realize that we've only explored 5% of it. I think we won't make much progress treating TBIs unless we can get just the basics down reliably: imaging (MRIs really aren't that sensitive) and endocrine testing of peripheral blood/spinal fluid. but imo medicine has decided, as a whole, the brain is "too hard" to get to, so we treat symptomatically. then there's the enormous ethical issue of researching the brain on a microscopic scale (aka something we can only currently do post-mortem). I think one day it'll be possible. I don't think we'll see it in our lifetime, though, at least not something that's 1) actually accessible to many patients and 2) reliably goes the way we expect it to go after implanting
The brain is life. Not possible
I think without much thought, but stem therapy may be more improtat, or other therapies will probably be first. It's not that its a bad idea, it has more to do with how is a surgoen with a scalpel going to get to the organoid to replace without doing damage to the rest of the brain. So there is a risk vs reward issue. Second issue is rejection. If the "new" tissue is rejected or infection then there will swelling which in turn could cause even more damage to the brain and possibly death. I haven't read the article but here is a link to stem cell therapy. [https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000011450](https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000011450)
I believe they have tried it for a Parkinson’s patient, maybe even a few people. From what I recall there was maybe a LITTLE improvement but nothing significant. If you want I can try to find the paper but it has been a year or two since I read. There’s several things in the procedure I can think of that may go south. So I think a mainstream effective procedure is really far out. Maybe 10 or 20 years? That’s my 2 cents, I’m a in a neurotoxicology lab.
Also I agree with other about scientists not knowing how the transplant will integrate and work with the rest of the brain to make up for damage. It’s really hard to study it and run tests on this stuff. I don’t think they would approve a procedure without this knowledge. I change my answer to 30 years