A medical startup says it is using disembodied human brains in new drug development research targeting neurodegenerative diseases, a practice that may draw unsettling comparisons to the science fiction trope of a living brain in a jar.
The brains of deceased donors are reportedly being used in the work by Bexorg, a Connecticut-based medical startup, building on successful attempts to restore limited function in pig brains.
A system dubbed BrainEx, a targeted life-support system for brains, is at the core of Bexorg’s work, restoring metabolic functions in donated organs and enabling extremely invasive research, albeit in a manner that has raised some ethical concerns.
Investigating the Human Brain
In their new process, Bexorg supplies recently deceased human brains with a blood substitute and other fluids that fuel metabolic processes, while anesthesia deadens their electrical activity. The artificially life-sustaining liquids, data, and drugs flow through four ports sutured into each brain, while apparatus mimicking the lungs and kidneys inject oxygen and remove waste.
Bexborg says that the lack of neural firing in the brain, induced by the anesthetic drug propofol, means they do not experience consciousness. In a strange twilight state, the brain operates as though it were alive, allowing researchers to observe how it metabolizes experimental drugs, yet without the electrical activity that forms consciousness.
The shelf life of these brains is rather short; after only 24 hours, the researchers cut them into hundreds of pieces for a more detailed study. These investigations are targeting how ailments such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may respond to new treatments, allowing detailed information on duration, targeting, and potential side effects.
According to Bexborg, the greatest advantage of their work is in the deep complexities of how the human brain develops over decades. The real-world effects of genetics, environmental exposures, and drug histories are difficult to capture in simulated computer models, petri dish cells, or whole-animal brains.
Bexborg Grows
While their work has only recently come to public attention, Bexborg has been working in this space for five years now. They say early results show a close match between the responses displayed by preserved examples and those of living brains.
So far, only the company’s work with pig brains has been published, with their first human brain paper forthcoming. However, according to Bexborg, recent efforts to curb animal testing may potentially be a boon to the company, offering what they see as an ethical alternative.
As part of Bexborg’s upscaling, the company says it is developing new laboratory space where a robotic arm will automatically dissect more than 1,600 preserved brains per year.
Their public relations arm was working at full steam on a public presentation this week, aimed at assuaging those who feared that the brains might still possess some form of consciousness. Bexborg did not respond to inquiries from The Debrief about exactly where the brains used in the company’s research originate. However, the company has claimed that family members are informed about how the brains will be used.
Bringing Bexborg Results to Market
The first real-world application of Bexborg’s work is coming to fruition as their collaborator, Biohaven, begins clinical trials of a drug developed using Bexborg data. Bexborg claims that their work will enable safer clinical trials, as the results will be much closer to a treatment’s effect on actual human brains than those from animal testing or simulated models.
Biohaven praised the results from testing on 130 preserved brains, noting that a dose of their drugs 20 times lower than expected yielded optimal results in human brains, thereby minimizing the time required for clinical trials and potentially alleviating major side effects that could have occurred at the higher dose.
While the company is now focused on drug testing, they say expansion into more robust disease research could be on the horizon. They also note that, since electrical activity is not a major component of neurodegenerative diseases, the BrainEx could be the ideal platform for studying these maladies.
Still, some issues exist with BrainEx, limiting it from being a perfect representation of the human body. These artificial fluids, lungs, and kidneys are not exactly he same as the human originals, and the lack of electrical activity means that potential seizure risks would go unrecognized.
In the future, Bexorg is looking to expand in two directions. The first is exploring ways to extend the longevity of their preserved brains from 24 hours to two weeks, enabling more in-depth research. The second—and perhaps at odds with the company’s focus on the human brain—is NeuroLens, a machine-learning model for simulated drug testing.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.