Scientists are to bring Neanderthal “miniature brains” to life to see how humans differ to their closest relatives.

The tiny blobs of tissue, around the size of a lentil, will be grown from human stem cells edited to contain Neanderthal DNA, according to reports.

The so-called brain organoids are incapable of thoughts or feelings but will replicate the basic structures of an adult brain.

Prof Svante Pääbo, director of genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, where the experiments will take place, told the Guardian: “Neanderthals are the closest relatives to everyday humans, so if we should define ourselves as a group or a species it is really them that we should compare ourselves to.

“We’re seeing if we can find basic differences in how nerve cells function that may be a basis for why humans seem to be cognitively so special.”

The lab has been at the forefront of efforts to crack the Neanderthal genome and last year published papers shedding light on just how many traits we owe to our ancestors.