By 
Madeline Lancaster
 | 
TED-Ed Original

What are mini brains?

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. How do they do it? And is it ethical? Madeline Lancaster shares how to make a brain in a lab.

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