Part-human part-mouse brain developed in science breakthrough

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, The research has raised questions about what it means to alter the way laboratory animals think and feel

Neuroscientists in the US have successfully adapted mice to have functioning human cells inside their own brains.

The researchers hope that potential treatments for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases that only occur in humans could now be tested on the laboratory rodents.

While mice with brains that are partly human might sound like a Kafkaesque experiment, the scientists said these are not "mice that think like humans".

The animals are genetically engineered - and surgically altered - so that some of their brain tissue is human.

The scientists said their work, published in the journal Nature , external , was carried out with independent ethical scrutiny.