Abstract
Our ability to study the developing human brain has recently been dramatically advanced by the development of human 'brain organoids', three-dimensional culture systems that recapitulate selected aspects of human brain development in reductionist, yet complex, tissues in vitro. Here I discuss the promises and challenges this new model system presents.
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Acknowledgements
I thank J. Brown for her thoughtful input and editing of the manuscript and D. Sun for creating the illustrations for this article. Work in the Arlotta lab related to the topic of this article is supported by grants from the US National Institute of Health and the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. I apologize to colleagues whose work I could not cite because of space limitations.
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Arlotta, P. Organoids required! A new path to understanding human brain development and disease. Nat Methods 15, 27–29 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.4557
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.4557
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