Question: Are you the one that grows brain cells, if you are then how do you do it? It sounds impossible!

Yewande Oyekenu answered on 11 Jun 2018:

Yes, I am the one who grows brain cells. It may sound impossible but with the technique called cell culture, it is very possible.
I dissect a mammalian brain and take out the desired portion of the brain. For experimental purpose, Wistar rat is used. I mainly use the part of the brain called the cortex which processes information in the brain. I digest the cortex with enzymes and this changes it to millions of cells in a small test tube. I add little drops of the specimen on many coverslips and put them in the incubator for 14 days while adding drugs that can either make brain cells (Neurons) multiply rapidly or have a retardation in growth.
Under normal conditions, after the 14 days, these million cells will have grown into thousands of neurons that have entangled with one another for the process of neurotransmission (sending messages in the brain). Apoptosis, which means cell death occurs while these brain cells are growing to allow for sufficient space for the surviving cells to grow and extend their dendrites. This means that for proper growth of healthy cells, cell death is necessary, leading to the survival of the fittest, but excessive cell death is bad for the cells.
(Check image of cortical neurons in my profile section on my work to see the picture of brain cells)

In humans, once a part of the body is damaged, a transplant which is usually costly or not feasible is required. But with cell culture and Organ-on-a-chip technology, any organ can be grown as miniature human organs and then transplanted into the human. A miniature Human can even be grown by growing different cells of the different parts of the body on separate spots on a single culture plate. This development is in its early stages. Read work done by WYSS Institute at Harvard University; https://wyss.harvard.edu/technology/human-organs-on-chips/)