Not all brains are equal: Why the human brain is more vulnerable to disease

With the help of cerebral organoids, IMBA scientists were able to ascertain that Tuberous Sclerosis, a rare neurodevelopmental genetic disorder, arises developmentally rather than only genetically. With these patient-derived laboratory models of the human brain, they pinpointed the origin of the disease to progenitor cells specific to humans. The findings, now published in Science, further show that the pathology of diseases affecting the human brain could only be well understood using human-derived brain organoid models.