VISUAL ARCHIVE / IMAGE STORY
Human Cortical Tissue in a Mouse Model
Researchers at Stanford grew human stem-cell-derived cortical tissue inside mice genetically engineered to develop without most of their normal cerebral cortex.
Researchers at Stanford grew human stem-cell-derived cortical tissue inside mice genetically engineered to develop without most of their normal cerebral cortex. The resulting tissue formed extensive connections with the animals’ remaining nervous systems. Conceptual illustration.
THE OBSERVATION
What we can actually see.
At three months, graft tissue accounted for approximately 91.9 percent of the combined cortical tissue volume in the measured group of seven animals. That is a cortical comparison, not the fraction of an entire brain. Anatomical tracing and activity measurements supplied different kinds of evidence for integration. The article also describes above-chance alternation in a Y-maze among graft-bearing mice, unlike the ungrafted cortex-depleted comparison group.
THE ILLUSTRATION
What the artwork imagines.
Researchers at Stanford grew human stem-cell-derived cortical tissue inside mice genetically engineered to develop without most of their normal cerebral cortex. The resulting tissue formed extensive connections with the animals’ remaining nervous systems. Conceptual illustration. The viewpoint, illumination, colors and simultaneous arrangement are artistic choices. This is a cinematic illustration, not a direct instrument image or a quantitative reconstruction of every feature.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE
The story that inspired it.
Human-derived cortical tissue grew and connected inside mice engineered to develop without most of their cortex. The experiment opens a model of neural development while leaving the meaning of its behavioral results carefully bounded. This frame focuses on human cortical tissue in a mouse model, within the complete illustrated article and its source-linked research context.
Read They Grew a Human Cortex Inside a Mouse. Then They Tested Its Memory.CHECK THE RECORD
The image interprets the research below. Follow the original work for the measurements and limits behind the scene.
Developmental xenocortication using human-derived organoids in mice Stanford Medicine research-team account, 2026-09-16 10.1038/s41467-022-35536-3 10.1016/j.stem.2023.01.004OTHER IMAGE STORIES
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The Expanding Cortical Graft
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Look inside an illustrative cell
Compare cellular structures in an interactive model. This is a general cell explorer, not a reconstruction of the cortical-graft experiment.
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