Human cerebral organoids and consciousness: a double-edged sword.

Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are three-dimensional cell cultures that mimic developing human brain tissue, currently reaching tens of millions of cells and a few millimeters in size, but lacking vascularization limits further growth. Recent research shows HCOs can exhibit electrical activity and EEG patterns similar to those of preterm babies, suggesting they may eventually develop sentience or rudimentary consciousness. This raises ethical questions about whether HCOs deserve moral status and what research limitations are needed. The article focuses on using HCOs to study consciousness emergence, arguing such experiments are probably not morally acceptable.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are three-dimensional in vitro cell cultures that mimic the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. In just a few years this technique has produced brain models that are already being used to study diseases of the nervous system and to test treatments and drugs. Currently, HCOs consist of tens of millions of cells and have a size of a few millimeters. The greatest limitation to further development is due to their lack of vascularization. However, recent research has shown that human cerebral organoids can manifest the same electrical activity and connections between brain neurons and EEG patterns as those recorded in preterm babies. All this suggests that, in the future, HCOs may manifest an ability to experience basic sensations such as pain, therefore manifesting sentience, or even rudimentary forms of consciousness. This calls for consideration of whether cerebral organoids should be given a moral status and what limitations should be introduced to regulate research. In this article I focus particularly on the study of the emergence and mechanisms of human consciousness, i.e. one of the most complex scientific problems there are, by means of experiments on HCOs. This type of experiment raises relevant ethical issues and, as I will argue, should probably not be considered morally acceptable.