The new Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) for Human Neural Development will integrate world-leading expertise with cutting-edge research to fill in major gaps in the fundamental understanding of brain growth and development.

Led by King’s College London, in partnership with University College London (UCL) and the University of Manchester, the key aim is to understand the critical mechanisms underpinning early brain development, from the womb to early childhood, and how their disruption can inform effective treatments.

Until recently, there were very few ways to study the development of the human brain in a meaningful way. Now, using the latest technological developments, including the ability to image the developing brain before and after birth, grow models of brain tissue in the laboratory, and harness the power of artificial intelligence, the centre will provide unprecedented insights into the development of the human cerebral cortex, the region of our brain that enables language, planning and creativity. Using these insights from the laboratory, the centre aims to develop markers of healthy brain development, which can be measured in babies and children to help develop and evaluate treatments in clinic.

Centre lead Professor Oscar Marín, based at King’s College London, said: “The human brain is a bit of a black box.

“We can measure patterns of brain activity from the outside, and we can even potentially connect them to what happens later in life, but we don't yet know how these signals actually relate to what's happening inside the child’s brain.

“This means we cannot tell which signals reflect something important about how the circuits inside the brain are developing. Until we can make that distinction, we cannot reliably predict which children are at risk or intervene early enough to make a difference.

“We have now reached a point where the technologies exist to close that gap, and we can turn that understanding into real differences for children and families.

“The one thing that makes King’s a very special place to tackle this problem is that there are very few places in the world that has this universe of discovery scientists and clinical scientists and facilities that will allow us to bring this program together.”

The centre will use organoid technologies to build human models of brain tissue in the newly established Brain Organoids Laboratory at King’s, which was funded through an initial donation of £1.5m from the Wolfson Foundation in 2024.

This pioneering technology allows researchers Professor Marin and Dr Laura Pellegrini to model how parts of the human brain develop and to tailor their genetic makeup to understand the specific genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders.

“We have the tools to essentially generate a primordial mini functional tissue that resembles a part of the cerebral cortex. This would help us to understand what goes wrong with, for example, with the cellular architecture in certain diseases,” commented Dr Pellegrini, Wellcome Trust CDA Fellow at King’s, on the doors opened by organoid technologies.

Professor Tomoki Arichi, Professor of Perinatal Neuroscience at King’s, and honorary consultant at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, will form part of a clinical team collaborating closely with clinical lead Professor Shruti Garg from the University of Manchester to help translate findings from the laboratory into new treatments and improvements in clinical care for children.

Professor Shruti Garg, Centre translational lead and Deputy director, based at The University of Manchester, said: "Working within NHS clinical networks in Manchester, we'll turn discoveries about brain development into tools clinicians can use making a real difference for children and families here and across the country."

Dr Ilias Tachtsidis, Centre Innovation Lead and Deputy Director, based in UCL’s Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, will lead on engineering aspects of the project. He added: "To deliver this ambitious vision of the centre, we need first-of-their-kind technologies that can safely and non-invasively image brain biology across scales—from blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to brain cells, down to the mitochondria that power them. This is a major engineering challenge we will tackle at UCL."

Professor Emily Jones, Professor of Developmental Translational Neuroscience at King’s, will follow how newly identified markers of healthy brain development translate to developmental outcomes beyond infancy at the new Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People.

When genetic mutations and environmental factors affect brain development in infants, the consequences are felt throughout their life.

These outcomes are disproportionately felt by minorities and families from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Dr Ceri Williams, Executive Director of Challenge Led Themes at MRC, said: “We are delighted to announce this new MRC CoRE for Human Neural Development, backed by £50 million of public investment.

“By untangling the mysteries of human brain development in the very early stages, this centre offers a powerful opportunity to transform lives, giving us the tools to make earlier and fairer interventions for a future where every child has the best possible chance to realise their full potential.”

Delivered collaboratively by the Universities of Manchester, Bristol and Liverpool, the new PhD Programme will train 40 of the UK’s most promising scientists to move beyond disciplinary boundaries and adopt integrated approaches to heart–brain health.  Together, they will uncover the biological and societal drivers that link heart and brain diseases, develop new tools for early detection, create predictive digital models for personalised care, and design therapies that target shared pathways across both organ systems. This integrated approach reflects the growing need for preventative, system-level solutions as populations age and multimorbidity rises.

 Recognising the need for integrative research linking heart and brain diseases, the programme is centred on the principles of multidisciplinary. Students will work on ambitious cross-disciplinary projects spanning discovery bioscience, engineering, data science, imaging, epidemiology and behavioural science. Bringing these different perspectives together will enable new insights into complex disease processes and help drive innovative solutions to some of the biggest challenges in cardiovascular and neurological health.

Cohort-based training across all three universities, alongside strong industry partnerships and access to world-leading infrastructure, will provide students with a rich and collaborative research environment. Together, these opportunities will equip them with the skills, networks and experience needed to become the future leaders driving innovation in cardiovascular and neurological research, with real impact for patients and health systems alike.

The programme application was led by Dr Gina Galli (University of Manchester), Professor Deirdre Lane (University of Liverpool) and Professor Alastair Poole (University of Bristol), who will be Directors of the new programme. For Manchester, this sees a continuation of our sustained BHF-funded PhD programme that has been running successfully since 2009, training present and future generations of cardiovascular researchers.

Professor Ashley Blom, Vice President and Dean of Biology, Medicine and Health at The University of Manchester said: “We are delighted to be part of this national training programme which looks at  the links between heart and brain diseases, an important yet under-researched area of  cardiovascular medicine.”

INBRAIN Neuroelectronics is a spin-out company from the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), partners of - and supported by - the European Commission’s Graphene Flagship programme.

INBRAIN’s work involves the decoding of brain signals by implanting innovative, flexible nanoscale graphene electrodes, developed in conjunction with researchers at Manchester’s Nanomedicine Lab and the National Graphene Institute (NGI).

These signals may then be used to produce a therapeutic, personalised response for patients with epilepsy, Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders.

This new investment is co-led by Barcelona-based venture capitalists Asabys Partners and Alta Life Sciences, joined by: Vsquared Ventures, a deep tech-focused early-stage venture capitalist based in Munich; TruVenturo GmbH, Germany’s most successful internet company builders; and CDTI, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Fruits of long collaboration

Kostas Kostarelos, Professor of Nanomedicine at The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, the NGI and co-founder of INBRAIN Neuroelectronics, said: ‘’This investment for INBRAIN is a testament that graphene-based technologies and the properties of 2D materials have a unique set of propositions to offer for clinical medicine and the management of neurological disorders.

“This did not happen suddenly, though, or by a stroke of good luck in the lab,” he added. “It is the culmination of many years of persistent and consistent work between at least three research institutions, one of which is the Nanomedicine Lab in Manchester, the other two in Barcelona, all working closely and cooperatively under the critically important funding of the Graphene Flagship project.”

The Graphene Flagship is the European Commission’s €1bn research funding spearhead and a key partner of ICN2, ICREA and Graphene@Manchester, with a mission is to accelerate advanced 2D materials research and commercialisation.

High costs of brain disease

The high incidence of brain-related diseases worldwide and their huge annual cost - around £700bn in Europe alone, according to a 2010 study by the European Brain Council - call for greater investments in basic research in this field, with the aim of developing new and more efficient therapeutic and diagnostic tools.

Existing brain interfaces are based on metals such as platinum and iridium, which significantly restrict miniaturisation and signal resolution, and are therefore responsible for considerable side effects.

As a consequence, there is a 50% rejection rate of these implants in candidate patients. INBRAIN Neuroelectronics has a disruptive technology proposition, based on the novel material graphene, that overcomes the current limitations of metal-based neural interfaces.

Graphene electrodes allow miniaturisation to nanoscale, with the potential to reach single-neuron resolution. The extraordinary properties of graphene - which is light, biocompatible, flexible and extremely conductive - are harnessed in much smaller devices, which are safer to implant and can be programmed, upgraded and recharged wirelessly.

Driven by artificial intelligence, the implant can learn from the brain of the specific patient and trigger adaptive responses to deliver a personalised neurological therapy. In addition, the use of big data management will permit remote monitoring of the device and data processing.

Better patient outcomes

Carolina Aguilar, founder and CEO of INBRAIN (pictured centre with team, above), said: “Patients with chronic conditions are alone with their diseases, at most they see their physician 1-4 times per year for a follow-up. With less invasive and more intelligent neuroelectronic therapies, we aim to provide safer and real-time adaptive therapies to empower them and improve the outcomes that matter to them.

“This way patients can better deal with their condition between follow-up visits, by getting the right therapy and support when they need it.”

The technology has already been validated in vitro and in vivo, with extensive biocompatibility and toxicity tests mainly performed in Manchester using preclinical models. This significant investment will be dedicated to bring the technology to human patients, with the execution of multiple clinical trials in collaboration with key neurosurgical and neurological groups in Europe, including various NHS hospitals.

Advanced materials is one of The University of Manchester’s research beacons - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons

A study of nearly half a million people has revealed that muscular strength, measured by handgrip, is an indication of how healthy our brains are.

Dr Joseph Firth, an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Manchester and Research Fellow at NICM Health Research Institute at Western Sydney University, crunched the numbers using UK Biobank data.

Using data from the 475,397 participants from all around the U.K, the new study showed that on average, stronger people performed better across every test of brain functioning used.

Tests included reaction speed, logical problem solving, and multiple different tests of memory.

The study shows the relationships were consistently strong in both people aged under 55 and those aged over 55. Previous studies have only shown this applies in elderly people

“When taking multiple factors into account such as age, gender, bodyweight and education, our study confirms that people who are stronger do indeed tend to have better functioning brains,” said Dr Firth.

The study, published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, also showed that maximal handgrip was strongly correlated with both visual memory and reaction time in over one thousand people with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

He said: “We can see there is a clear connection between muscular strength and brain health.

“But really, what we need now, are more studies to test if we can actually make our brains healthier by doing things which make our muscles stronger – such as weight training.”

Previous research by group has already found that aerobic exercise can improve brain health.

However, the benefit of weight training on brain health has yet to be fully investigated.

He added: “These sorts of novel interventions, such as weight training, could be particularly beneficial for people with mental health conditions.

“Our research has shown that the connections between muscular strength and brain functioning also exist in people experiencing schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder – all of which can interfere with regular brain functioning.

“This raises the strong possibility that weight training exercises could actually improve both the physical and mental functioning of people with these conditions.”

Baseline data from the UK Biobank (2007-2010) was analysed; including 475,397 individuals from the general population, and 1,162 individuals with schizophrenia.

The paper ‘Grip strength is associated with cognitive performance in schizophrenia and the general population: a UK Biobank study of 476,559 participants’ is published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sby034 .