Table 1.

Comparison of the characteristics of human cells used in research.

	Key advantages	Key disadvantages
Postmortem brains	Show brain region-specific disease signatures, including epigenetic changes	Brain signatures may be confounded by compensatory changes, medications, substance abuse and postmortem changes Cannot perform functional assays
Blood cells	Easy to collect Lymphoblasts are widely banked and are expandable	May not show neuronal phenotypes
Olfactory cells	Can establish neurons without reprogramming via exogenous factors Can perform functional assays	May not show exact brain phenotypes
iPS cells	Recapitulate developmental trajectory while being differentiated into neurons Can perform functional assays Expandable	Laborious and expensive to generate Need to reprogram cells via exogenous factors
iN cells	Faster and easier to generate neurons than via iPS cells Can perform functional assays	Need to reprogram cells via exogenous factors Not expandable
Induced neural progenitor cells	Faster and easier to generate neurons than via iPS cells Can perform functional assays Expandable	Need to reprogram cells via exogenous factors