CHAPTER TWELVE Building the brain from scratch: Engineering region-specific brain organoids from human stem cells to study neural development and disease Fadi Jacoba,b,c, Jordan G. Schnolla, Hongjun Songa,d,e,f, and Guo-li Minga,d,e,g,* aDepartment of Neuroscience and Mahoney Institute for Neurosciences, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States bThe Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States cMedical Scientist Training Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States dDepartment of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States eInstitute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States fThe Epigenetics Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States gDepartment of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States *Corresponding author: e-mail address:
[email protected] Contents 1. Introduction 478 1.1 Fundamentals of mammalian brain development 479 1.2 Human-specific features 482 1.3 Comparison of in vitro human cell models 482 2. Generation of region-specific brain organoids from human stem cells 484 2.1 Unguided differentiation: Cerebral organoids 484 2.2 Guided differentiation: Region-specific brain organoids 489 3. Advancements in cellular complexity of brain organoids 496 3.1 Fusion of region-specific brain organoids 497 3.2 Enhancing glial cell production and maturation 499 3.3 Reconstitution of resident immune cells and vasculature 500 3.4 Technical modifications for long-term culture 501 3.5 In vivo orthotopic xenotransplantation 503 4.