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What are mini brains?

Published on 17 January, 2018

Shielded by our thick skulls and swaddled in layers of protective tissue, the human brain is extremely difficult to observe in action. Luckily, scientists can use brain organoids – pencil-eraser-sized masses of cells that function like human brains but aren’t part of an organism – to look closer. Madeline Lancaster, from the LMB’s Cell Biology Division, discusses how this is done and whether it is ethical through a video created by TED-Ed. More…