Animal testing has been dubbed inhuman by many private organizations and the fight to eradicate it has always been a big issue.
Scientists alike believe that there are more humane ways to test drug efficacy that does not need a living animal and they have been looking in several places to actually come up with an alternative.
The problem creating an alternative is the ability of it to replicate the results seen in animals. This means that the alternative should be highly cognitive.
When considering highly cognitive models it somehow needs a huge budget. But fortunately a group of scientists have found out a cheaper and more versatile alternative to animal testing.
The study, published by a team of researchers from Brown University is about the creation of a mini-brain taken from a living tissue of an animal.
A single tissue can bear thousands of these so called miniature or mini-brains. The mini-brains are three dimensional in-vitro models and have the capability to bridge the gap between traditional two-dimensional culture and animal models.
"The in-vitro characteristic of the mini-brains allows them to have in-vivo like microenvironment in a tailorable experimental platform," the study says.
To harvest the mini-brains, it should be first isolated from the living tissue taken from the rodent, and through centrifugation the scientist are able to get the first sample of the mini-brains needed. Once collected, they grow the sample in a medium made of agarose spherical mold.
The resulting growth of mold in the agarose medium is then collected and becomes the mini-brains. This makes it an easier and far cheaper alternative.
The mini-brains creates synaptic activities just like how living animals being tested portray. The neurons of the mini-brains were electrically active and formed circuitry through both excitatory and inhibitory synapses.
This will help eradicate the need for animals to be tested with drugs and such.
