Capps Benjamin
Camb Q Healthc Ethics. 2017 Oct;26(4):577-591. doi: 10.1017/S0963180117000093.
Suppose that a colleague proposed a fantastic experiment: to introduce human stem cells into a neonatal mouse so that its entire brain developed into "human-like" neuronal structures. The colleague claimed it would still be a mouse, and that its chimeric brain would be nothing like a "human" one. It would not, as a result, have a moral status beyond its nonhuman animal origins. Thus, the "human neuron mouse" would allow scientists to tinker with human-like neurology in ways that would be precluded if it were a human being, and that would promise to lead to substantial understanding of the destructive and incurable brain diseases that befall humanity. The colleague does admit, however, that for reasons of comparative fidelity, experiments in human patients would be scientifically preferable, although in this case, neither ethically justified nor legally permitted. For that reason, it might be desirable to create a human brain in a nonhuman primate, where it would be more likely that significant human-like neuronal development would occur, but still could not become a person. This article explores the significance of a "human neuron chimpanzee," and suggests that contradictions in the design of the experiment make it unethical to proceed in either murine or primate models.
将人类干细胞引入新生小鼠体内，使其整个大脑发育成“类人”神经元结构。这位同事声称它仍然是一只老鼠，其嵌合大脑与“人类”大脑毫无相似之处。因此，它不会具有超越其非人类动物起源的道德地位。这样，“人类神经元小鼠”将使科学家能够以如果它是人类就会被排除的方式来研究类人神经学，有望大幅增进对降临在人类身上的毁灭性和无法治愈的脑部疾病的理解。然而，这位同事确实承认，出于比较逼真度的考虑，在人类患者身上进行实验在科学上会更可取，尽管在这种情况下，既不符合伦理规范，也不被法律允许。出于这个原因，或许有必要在非人类灵长类动物体内培育一个人类大脑，在这种情况下更有可能发生显著的类人神经元发育，但它仍然不可能成为一个人。本文探讨了“人类神经元黑猩猩”的意义，并指出该实验设计中的矛盾使得在小鼠或灵长类动物模型中进行该实验是不道德的。
