BBC NEWS | Health | Brain cells are matured in lab

An article from Tuesday, 14 June, 2005 which does my sense of being not much good either. Nobody told me the mature brain can produce brain cells.

A little more than a decade ago, scientists came to realise that the brain continues to produce small amounts of new cells even in adulthood.

They also neglected to mention that braincells have been produced, in the lab, from stem cells.

It is not the first time that immature stem cells have been manipulated in the laboratory to become brain cells.

But now I know. Of course the bugger is that, and I can confirm this from personal experience, the mature brain can't do it fast enough.

The scientists on the other hand seem to have a handle on this:

"Then we thaw them, begin a cell-generating process, and produce a ton of new neurons."

As with all these discoveries, it seems they have yet to find a good use for it...

"More importantly, as is the case for all tissue culture models, they are a long way from showing that such cells could be of therapeutic potential."