From Our Neurons to Yours Assembling the brain | Sergiu Pasca
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Apr 27, 2023 Sergiu Pasca, physician-scientist at Stanford who builds mini brain models to study development. He explains how organoids and assembloids let researchers watch circuit formation, test genetic and CRISPR approaches, and even transplant human tissue into rats to probe integration. The conversation covers model limits, maturation timing, ethical safeguards, and hope for targeted treatments in the near future.
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Psychiatric Disorders Often Begin In Early Brain Development
- Many psychiatric disorders likely originate during early brain development when circuits are being set up in utero.
- Pasca explains that subtle prenatal miswiring can trigger domino effects that only manifest as autism, schizophrenia, or depression later in life.
Patient Stem Cells Plus CRISPR Recreate Developmental Wiring Defects
- Combining patient-derived iPS cells with CRISPR lets researchers grow personalized brain models and test how specific mutations alter circuit wiring.
- Pasca highlights rewinding development from skin cells to neurons to observe mutation-driven wiring defects.
Assembloids Recreate Migration And Wiring In 3D
- 3D organoid cultures self-organize and enable modeling of successive developmental stages like cell specification, migration, and circuit formation.
- Pasca describes assembling region-specific organoids into assembloids to recreate migration and wiring diagrams.