Neurobiologie in der Petrischale – Chancen und Herausforderungen

Human neural organoids, 3-dimensional cultures derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, provide a platform to study brain development in a human-specific context. Using brain region-specific organoids, we modeled the rare neurological disorder PCH2a, examined the effects of prenatal exposure to an antiepileptic drug, and studied protein secretion during organoid differentiation. Taken together, neural organoids provide a versatile model system to study human brain development and its perturbations by genetic or environmental factors.