Schizophrenia Organoids: How Brain Organoids Could Lead the Way to Innovative New Schizophrenia Treatments

Mental health and brain disorders are being given more attention than ever as societal stigma declines and new technologies lead to innovative analysis and treatment. Thanks to support from the European Union, a three-dimensional (3D) human brain organoid model is offering a possible breakthrough in the treatment of schizophrenia. For a psychiatric disease such as schizophrenia, a patient is diagnosed based on psychiatric symptoms. These cannot be identified by a lab test performed in a tube or a machine, but rather necessitate time spent talking with the patient and assessing how they act. By the time the patient’s behavior has changed enough to allow for diagnosis, the condition has developed, resulting in a radical alteration of the brain’s cell biology. As a result, it is not possible to study the early stages of the disease.