According to an opinion piece by Paul Knoepfler, a professor at UC Davis School of Medicine, a team led by Stanford professor Sergiu Pașca has reported in Nature the creation of a mouse with a cortex made of human brain cells. Knoepfler, who writes the Lab Dish column for STAT, says reading the paper gave him a combination of 'wow' and 'whoa' reactions. He notes that the cortex is the major factor in what makes us human and is the center of complex thought.
Knoepfler points out that his own team has previously injected human stem cells into mouse brains, but that this new research goes well beyond that. He places the work in the context of fictional stories such as 'Flowers for Algernon' and the cartoon 'Pinky and the Brain,' noting that science is catching up with fiction.
Because the source is an opinion piece, it reflects the author's perspective rather than an independent evaluation of the research. Knoepfler does not offer a definitive answer on whether such mice could be conscious or have a different consciousness, but he raises those questions as central to the ethical discussion. The essay underscores the need for careful consideration of human-animal chimeras as the science moves forward.