These brain-like 3D structures grown from human stem cells developed by specialists at the University of California, with samples from patients diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, showed patterns of electrical activity similar to seizures.

The possibility of using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS) is a breakthrough for genetics since, in addition to having the potential to generate practically any other human anatomical unit, they can be organized in a three-dimensional way and form structures similar to real organs.

Scientists found how to take skin or blood cells to genetically ‘transform’ them in the lab into iPS and then direct them to create any similar unit present in the body and develop complex structures similar to organs.

The research revealed the possibility of creating brain organoids similar to the real tissue of the brain, useful to accurately replicate certain characteristics of the brain functions and also those abnormalities.

With these cerebral organoids it will be possible to model not only the brain structure but also its function, something pivotal if we consider that many neurological diseases do not become clear at the structural level.

pgh/Pll/oda / nmr