Opinion | Ethics Consult: Let Researcher Create Mouse-Human Brain?

Welcome to Ethics Consult — an opportunity to discuss, debate (respectfully), and learn together. We select an ethical dilemma from a true, but anonymized, patient care case. You vote on your decision in the case and, next week, we’ll reveal how you all made the call. Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel, MD, JD, will also weigh in with an ethical framework to help you learn and prepare.

The following case is adapted from Appel’s 2019 book, Who Says You’re Dead? Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned.

A neurology researcher has a novel idea for studying the mechanisms of diseases that affect brain cells, such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. She intends to inject human brain cells into mice embryos to trace their development. She estimates that the brains of these embryos would be 50% human and 50% mouse. The hybrid mice would be killed painlessly long before birth. The researcher would then study their hybrid brains for rudimentary elements of human cognition. Her long-term goal is to create mouse models for the development of drugs that can treat serious human diseases.

Jacob M. Appel, MD, JD, is director of ethics education in psychiatry and a member of the institutional review board at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. He holds an MD from Columbia University, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a bioethics MA from Albany Medical College.

Check out some of our past Ethics Consult cases:

Let Look-Alike Sisters Commit Insurance Fraud?

Wrong to Offer Cheap, Pirated Version of Drug?

Cut Health Insurance for Risky Activities?