The future of brain science

This podcast episode explores the revolutionary breakthrough in growing brain tissue from skin cells. Professor Sergio Paschke and his team at Stanford University have transformed skin cells into stem cell-like cells and guided their differentiation into brain cells, creating 3D organoid and assembloid cultures that mimic the nervous system. These cultures offer new opportunities for studying and treating psychiatric and neurological diseases, such as chronic pain, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. The research aims to uncover the mysteries of the human brain and find solutions for psychiatric disorders. The episode also discusses the challenges of not being able to access the human brain directly in psychiatry and neurology, and the use of genetic forms of psychiatric disease in cellular models to understand their pathophysiology and develop therapeutics. Furthermore, the episode explores the importance of testing therapeutics in living organisms and the development of human organoids transplanted into rats as a strategy for pre-clinical testing. The ability to engineer complex communication pathways using human cell models and induce mutations to study sensory systems is also highlighted. Additionally, the episode emphasizes the importance of conversations with the scientific community and the public in responsible neuroscience research and the sharing of technology and techniques to facilitate implementation and collaboration.