Brain/Brains trust

In America, where the expression originated, it is brain trust. In Britain and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, it is usually brains trust, in the plural. A brain or brains trust is a group or panel of highly qualified experts who are assembled to analyse and solve problems quickly. The expression originated in America in the early 1900s but gained prominence in the 1930s when it was strongly associated with the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which regularly employed brain trusts to solve or shed light on problematical governmental issues.