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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Brain Res. 2020 Mar 30;1742:146803. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146803

Table 1:

Disease models in human brain organoids.

Disease Paper Guided/Unguided system Region Main findings Protocol used
Microcephaly Lancaster et al 2013 (Nature) Unguided Whole-brain organoids Increase in immature neuronal differentiation Lancaster et al 2013
Autism spectrum disorder Mariani et al 2015 (Cell) Guided Telencephalon organoids Disruption of excitatory/inhibitor balance Mariani et al 2015
ZIKA virus exposure Qian et al 2016 (Cell) Guided Forebrain organoids Increase in apoptosis and suppressing neuronal progenitor proliferation Qian et al 2016
Alzheimer disease Raja et al 2016 (PLOS PNE) Guided Forebrain organoids Amyloid and tau pathology is mimicked and their responsiveness to drug treatment Adopted from Kadoshima et al 2013 protocol
Lissencephaly (Miller Dieker Syndrome) Bershteyn et al 2017 (Cell Stem Cell) Guided Cerebral organoids A decrease in radial glial cells population and defect in neuronal migration Kadoshima et al 2013
Zika virus Watanabe et al 2017 (Cell Report) Guided Cerebral organoids Increase apoptosis and hence smaller organoids size. Further efficiency of different drug treatment Adopted from Kadoshima et al 2013 protocol
Schizophrenia Ye et al 2017 (Neuron) Guided Forebrain organoids Reduced proliferation of neural stem cells in the ventricular zone Qian et al 2016
Microcephaly Li et al 2017 (Protein & Cell) Guided Telencephalon organoids A decrease in neuronal progenitors and mature neurons. Adopted from Lancaster et al 2013 (Li et al 2017)
Frontotemporal dementia Seo et al 2017 (The Journal of neuroscience) Guided Forebrain organoids The pathway involved in Tau phosphorylation Adopted from Kadoshima et al 2013 protocol
Brain tumor formation Bian et al 2018 (Nature method) Unguided Cerebral organoids Targeted drug testing on different brain tumors Lancaster et al 2013
Periventricular heterotopia Blair et al 2018 (Nature medicine) Unguided Cerebral organoids Defective neuronal migration, and morphological disturbance in neural progenitor cells Lancaster et al 2013
Autism spectrum disorder Schafer et al 2019 (Nature neuroscience) Guided and Unguided organoids Cerebral and forebrain organoids Increase in neurite length of the early born neurons Lancaster et al 2013; Qian et al 2016
Tuberous sclerosis Klaus et al 2019 (Nature medicine) Guided Cortical spheroids Disruption of mTORCI signaling pathway during development Pasca et al 2015
Hypoxic brain injury of prematurity Pasca et al 2019 (Nature medicine) Guided Cortical spheroids Premature differentiation of intermediate progenitor cells Pasca et al 2019
Prenatal Hypoxic Injury Daviaud et al 2019 (frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience) Unguided Cerebral organoids Varying resilience from different neural populations. Adopted from Lancaster et al 2013