Stanford: The Human Brain Is Actually Two Separate Organs

A Stanford-led study in Nature Neuroscience found that the forebrain and hindbrain arise from distinct progenitor cells and evolved independently over hundreds of millions of years. The team used the finding to grow hindbrain motor neurons from pluripotent stem cells in the lab for the first time.

• Forebrain and hindbrain come from different progenitor cells
• The split was confirmed via chromatin differences in mouse embryos
• Hindbrain motor neurons were grown from stem cells for the first time
• Similar diverging paths found in zebrafish, chickens and acorn worms