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Review
. 2019 Sep 1;34(5):365-375.
doi: 10.1152/physiol.00005.2019.

Brain Organoids as Tools for Modeling Human Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Affiliations
Review

Brain Organoids as Tools for Modeling Human Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Jason W Adams et al. Physiology (Bethesda). .

Abstract

Brain organoids recapitulate in vitro the specific stages of in vivo human brain development, thus offering an innovative tool by which to model human neurodevelopmental disease. We review here how brain organoids have been used to study neurodevelopmental disease and consider their potential for both technological advancement and therapeutic development.

Keywords: disease modeling; neurodevelopmental disease; organoids; stem cells.

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Figures

FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 1.
Advantages and disadvantages of methods of neurodevelopmental disease analysis Neurodevelopmental disease mechanisms can be assessed using various modalities, each of which has unique and complementary strengths, with selection dependent on desired readout.
FIGURE 2.
FIGURE 2.
Brain organoid disease modeling and analytic techniques Brain organoids can model congenital structural deficits or be subjected to environmental insult. In addition, genetic engineering and multi-organoid fusion enable the assessment of a broader array of disease mechanisms, such as abnormal interregional development. Various methods can be used to evaluate the developmental changes that underlie the disparate phenotypes observed between normal and diseased organoids.

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