Probing miBrain

How to understand the brain? One way is to build a realistic model, then poke it and see what happens. By taking a human patient’s cells, researchers first 'reset' them to behave more like embryonic stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are then guided with chemicals to develop into different types of important brain cell, just as they would during development. In this multicellular integrated brain (miBrain), grown inside a ball of jelly-like hydrogel, networks develop between different types cell derived from iPSCs – neurons (highlighted in turquoise), endothelial cells that line blood vessels (red) and microglia (green). These model brains can now be probed to explore links between these and other cells in a way that would be impossible in the real thing. And by growing miBrains from cells donated by different patients, researchers can explore personalised treatments to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Alice E. Stanton & Adele Bubnys, and colleagues
• Koch Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), October 2025