By Daniel Engber Posted 08.29.2012 at 4:08 pm 16 Comments

Brain in a Dish Tony Latham/Getty Images

Scientists have isolated the brains of dogs, cats and monkeys and kept them alive for short periods in one way or another. But the most successful “whole-brain preparation” of a mammal was developed in the mid-1980s. A neuroscientist at NYU Langone Medical Center named Rodolfo Llinás came up with a way to keep the brain of a young guinea pig alive in a fluid-filled tank for the length of a standard workday.

To begin with, Llinás and his colleagues anesthetized the animal, opened up its chest, and cooled its brain by injecting cold saline into the ascending aorta. After extracting the brain from the skull, the researchers tied it to the bottom of the tank with some thread and surrounded it with glass beads, so it wouldn’t slide around. They kept the brain alive by injecting a solution of sugar, electrolytes and dissolved oxygen (among other ingredients) directly into one of its vertebral arteries. Guinea pigs turned out to be a good animal for this preparation because their vertebral arteries are accessible and because their brains are small enough to handle—but not too small for fine dissection.

Llinás’s preparation allows for the brain to be poked with electrodes, injected with drugs, or otherwise studied from any angle with all its circuitry intact. But there are only a handful of labs that still use this approach; many physiologists do experiments with whole, living animals or slices of brain tissue kept alive in a dish instead. “The preparation is difficult and expensive to maintain as a model system for brain study,” says University of Alberta neuroscientist Clayton Dickson, who learned the method in Italy but has since abandoned it. “It requires a dedicated, continuous and persistent research team to keep it going.”

16 Comments

Link to this comment
Robot
08/29/12 at 4:39 pm

Gasp! Great zounds! I am suddenly having flash back to all the old black n white B movies and mad scientist putting people brains in a jar and trasnaplanting them from one person to another. For those of you, who put donated you body to science should you die, you may want to not donate you head, perhaps. You might find yourself looking out from a jar on desk! ;)

Link to this comment
buell
08/29/12 at 5:56 pm

do the ends justify the means? Im all for studying the brain but I dont think its right to cut open living animals and transplant their brains into jars for a day. Seems like hell to me. And if we cant answer the basic question of if a soul exists, then how do we know if we are not distorting a living soul or sending it into limbo

Technology will eventually provide an answer to the questions they are looking for.

I think we will look back on this article like we look back at other articles from the early popsci days. Its primitive and like Robot said, its like a mad scientist in a b movie.

Link to this comment
gizmowiz
08/29/12 at 8:11 pm

I wonder if any thoughts are possible on 'live' body-less brains? If so what a horrible way to go! Prisoner for life without any input-output possible!

Link to this comment
7-Electromagnet...
08/29/12 at 9:55 pm

Yarp a brain can work without sensory organs. You just have to feed it, water it and keep it safe. It would be scary, not feeling or seeing anything. At all. It is a neat concept but it would be scary to anything. No input what so ever. I don't see it as valid anymore especially not with fMRIs.

I don't see how the Cognitators can do it!

Link to this comment
Far Out Man
08/29/12 at 10:08 pm

Seems to me that without input, the brain would naturally go to sleep and just dream. Perhaps a similar effect to an isolation tank. Doesn't sound so bad but I'm not volunteering!

Link to this comment
GMarsack
08/30/12 at 8:00 am

lol to the comment above..

---
In space, no one can hear a tree fall in the forest.

Link to this comment
kamydon
08/30/12 at 8:28 am

This is the first step toward Immortality!

Soon, when we get old we'll extract brains and attach them to machines... like the robocop! ;)
There was an article here couple days ago about connecting nerves to electronics! and another one yesterday about controlling everything with the brain..
at the same time, we'll be able to regenerate body part using stem cell technology..
and maybe one days we'll discover the gene responsible for body regeneration (the skill we apparently lost a long time ago)
or think about the day where we can find a cure to aging!! There is no reason why we should age and die..

Link to this comment
Robot
08/30/12 at 10:30 am

"...FYI: How Long Can a Brain Live in a Dish?..."

Only until its finished being cooked, of course! ;)

Link to this comment
betwisted
08/30/12 at 11:18 am

@kamydon

If people were left to reproduce but never age and die we would rapidly surpass the carrying capacity of this rock we call home...

Link to this comment
Cookiees453
08/31/12 at 10:40 am

@betwisted

Then we move on to a new "rock" that we can call home. And we rinse and repeat the process until the Human Civilization has populated the entire Galaxy. Then we move on to the next galaxy. And when the entire universe is populated with humanity, we moved on to parallel universes.

Long story short: Colonizing the Cosmos will solve our long term population problems.

Link to this comment
Cookiees453
08/31/12 at 10:42 am

It definitely helped America when they colonized the West. So let's colonize space, the next frontier.

Link to this comment
anrichter
10/18/12 at 9:22 pm

weird!!!!! All I have to say that what i just read could possibly have been the most disgusting, scary, and horrifying article that I have ever read!!!!! Although, it was kind of interesting it is still very odd that somebody would find that so interesting except my dad.But he's a neurosurgeon.

Link to this comment
neila
10/30/12 at 1:46 pm

lol it helped people when they colonized, not America. Thats a good idea, we should spread to every inhabitable planet and suck them dry because we deserve it right. Lol the "frontier mentality".

Link to this comment
welshnev62
11/02/12 at 6:07 pm

If only we could figure a way to travel to any of these so called goldilocks planets.Voyager1 has been out there since 1977 and is only just at the oort cloud. Travelling at 38000mph

Link to this comment
kangdawei
12/13/12 at 8:31 pm

I hope any brains they use are abbie normal.

Link to this comment
NOCELL
01/15/13 at 10:06 pm

Igor, may I speak to you for a moment?..Of course...Sit down won't you...Now, that....brain that you gave me, was it, Hans Delbruchts??...No...ah...good...Would you mind telling me, whose brain I "did" put in??...And you won't be angry?....I will NOT be..angry......Abby...someone...Abby someone??...Abby...who??....Abby...Normal......Abby Normal....yes, I am almost sure that was the name...Are you saying that I put, an abnormal brain, into a seven and a half foot looong, fifty four inch wiiiide, GORILLA?????


140 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.



Popular Science+ For iPad

Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page



Download Our App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed


February 2013: How To Build A Hero

Engineers are racing to build robots that can take the place of rescuers. That story, plus a city that storms can't break and how having fun could lead to breakthrough science.

Also! A leech detective, the solution to America's train-crash problems, the world's fastest baby carriage, and more.



Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email

Contributing Writers:
Clay Dillow | Email
Rebecca Boyle | Email
Colin Lecher | Email
Emily Elert | Email

Intern:
Shaunacy Ferro | Email

circ-top-header.gif
circ-cover.gif