By reprogramming skin cells into brain cells, scientists gain new insights into mental disorders. For many poorly understood mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or autism, scientists have wished they could uncover what goes wrong inside the brain before damage ensues.
Now in a significant advancement, researchers are using genetic engineering and growth factors to reprogram the skin cells of patients with schizophrenia, autism, and other neurological disorders and grow them into brain cells in the laboratory. There, under their careful watch, investigators can detect inherent defects in how neurons develop or function, or see what environmental toxins or other factors prod them to misbehave in the petri dish. With these "diseases in a dish" they can also test the effectiveness of drugs that can right missteps in development, or counter the harm of environmental insults. Prior to this disease-in-a-dish approach, the only main avenue researchers had to study human brain disorders in detail was to look for abnormalities in brain tissue removed from patients after their deaths.
Le cerveau à tous les niveaux. 5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness. Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it.
There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5.