mini-brain

 This is a miniature brain created in a laboratory by taking stem cells from the body which then develop functioning neural networks.  The formal name for a mini-brain is a cerebral organoid, an organoid being an artificial organ grown in vitro.

Scientists have been getting better at producing the mini-brain and for the first time their lab brains are spontaneously producing brainwaves, allowing scientist to learn more about brain development.

 The brainlets are pea-sized because it has not been possible yet to provide them with an internal blood supply for nutrients. Instead they have to take nourishment from the surrounding culture. However it is hoped that they may be a source of material which can be inserted into a human brain to restore a function that has been lost.

 At the moment the brain activity is not comparable to that of an adult human brain, but it does resembe to that of a pre-term baby. There are those who are nervous about creating consciousness in a Petri dish, and the closer the brainlets get to the stage of a pre-term baby, the more that anxiety will present itself.