Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years. Yacold also

partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for

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That's Y-A-K-U-L-T dot CO.JP. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

This is Scientific American 60 Second Science. I'm Suzanne Bard.

It's not easy to study the early development of the human brain.

The brain is very inaccessible, especially the early fetal stages.

It's just not ethical to study normal, healthy human brains.

University of California's San Diego biologist Alison Muotri.

He says researchers have instead relied on animal models. But the human brain is so much

difference from other species that we were desperate to have really a human model so we can study

the human brain. Now, Muotri's team may have that model in the form of small globules of brain

cells they've created in the lab. These pea-sized structures develop from stem cells that are

bathed in a culture of nutrients along with proteins that control gene activation. As the little

structures grow, their constituents also specialize into different types of brain cells.

And they will form connections, and these connections will form functional synapses that will later on turn into networks.

After two months, the mini brains even begin to emit brain waves.

And you can record every week to see how the activity has changed. And when they

reach about six months of age, we see a growth exponentially in the number of connections and

synapses that they can make. And at around 10 months, their brain activity compares to that

of premature human infants. They're pretty much following the same trajectory as the human brain does.

...