Scientists Grew Tiny Human Forebrains in a Dish

The so-called organoids could shed light on how autism and schizophrenia develop

Human forebrain organoids in a cell culture dish. Credit: Pasca Lab, Stanford University

Studying how the human brain develops is difficult. Brain tissue can’t be removed from living people, and although it can be examined after someone dies, dead organs are not ideal for studying the mechanisms that give rise to brain disorders. Animal brains can only tell scientists so much, and human fetal tissue is hard to come by.

As an alternative to real brain tissue, researchers have recently figured out how to turn stem cells into neurons and grow them until they form tiny, three-dimensional blobs of brain tissue no bigger than a pea. Now, these aren’t actual human brains, of course — they’re just models. But they do mimic certain characteristics of the human brain at a very rudimentary level. Scientists call them brain organoids.

Scientists have created organoids of different brain regions — such as the midbrain and hippocampus — and all appear to have genetic similarities to human brains. Now, investigators at Stanford University and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, founded in 2016 with $600 million from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, have created organoids that imitate the human forebrain in a petri dish. The forebrain is the largest part…