Modeling Psychiatric Diseases with Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Abstract

Neuropsychiatric disorders are a heterogeneous group of disorders that are challenging to model and treat, due to their underlying complex genetic architecture and clinical variability. Presently, increasingly more studies are making use of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neurons, reprogrammed from patient somatic cells, to model neuropsychiatric disorders. iPSC-derived neurons offer the possibility to recapitulate relevant disease biology in the context of the individual patient genetic background. In addition to disease modeling, iPSC-derived neurons offer unprecedented opportunities in drug screening. In this chapter, the current status of iPSC disease modeling for neuropsychiatric disorders is presented. Both 2D and 3D disease modeling approaches are discussed as well as the generation of different neuronal cell types that are relevant for studying neuropsychiatric disorders. Moreover, the advantages and limitations are highlighted in addition to the future perspectives of using iPSC-derived neurons in the uncovering of robust cellular phenotypes that consecutively have the potential to lead to clinical developments.

Keywords: Autism; Bipolar disorder; Disease modeling; Human-induced pluripotent stem cells; Neuronal differentiation; Neuropsychiatric disorders; Schizophrenia; iPSCs.