ArticleMonash bioethics review2020
Human cerebral organoids and consciousness: a double-edged sword.
Article in Monash bioethics review, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 87 citations in OpenAlex.
- Organoids: a systematic review of ethical issues.Stem cell research & therapy · 2022Pooled it
- When to create embryos or organoids for research.Journal of medical ethics · 2026Article
- Ethics and Regulation of Human Brain Organoid Research: Recommendations from the Asia Pacific Neuroethics Working Group.Asian bioethics review · 2026Article
- Advances and applications of brain organoids in central nervous system disorders: Bridging the gap from laboratory to clinic.Neural regeneration research · 2026Article
- Recreating the human brain: Are assembloids merely descriptive models?Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Review
- The ethical aspects of human organ-on-chip models: A mapping review.Stem cell reports · 2025Review
- Facing the possibility of consciousness in human brain organoids.Patterns (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Review
- Cartilage repair: unleashing PRP's potential in organoid models.Cytotechnology · 2025Review
- Moral Intuition Regarding the Possibility of Conscious Human Brain Organoids: An Experimental Ethics Study.Science and engineering ethics · 2024Article
- Animus: human-embodied animals.Journal of medical ethics · 2024Article
- Why brain organoids are not conscious yet.Patterns (New York, N.Y.) · 2024Review
- The Donation of Human Biological Material for Brain Organoid Research: The Problems of Consciousness and Consent.Science and engineering ethics · 2024Article
- Insights on Three Dimensional Organoid Studies for Stem Cell Therapy in Regenerative Medicine.Stem cell reviews and reports · 2024Review
- Moral considerability of brain organoids from the perspective of computational architecture.Oxford open neuroscience · 2024Article
- Cerebral Organoid Research Ethics and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey.Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees · 2023Article
- The Ethics of Human Brain Organoid Transplantation in Animals.Neuroethics · 2023Article
- Knowledge graphs of ethical concerns of cerebral organoids.Cell proliferation · 2022Article
- Revisiting selected ethical aspects of current clinical in vitro fertilization (IVF) practice.Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics · 2022Review
- Article
- "Compoundless Anaesthesia", Controlled Administration, and Post-Operative Recovery Acceleration: Musings on Theoretical Nanomedicine Applications.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.