Editorial: Mental health: cell models to mechanisms
Abstract
The human brain is a complex, large-scale organ that changes throughout the lifespan. The differences between individual people arise through microstructural cell interactions within the brain and how they modulate neuronal function. The objective of in vitro cell assays is therefore not to faithfully reconstruct the whole brain, this can be achieved by post-mortem brain histology, functional brain imaging and animal studies, but rather to probe these interactions at high resolution and in manipulable cell culture conditions. However, to achieve this, it is necessary to make clear decisions on what biological processes to study.The most immediate benefit of an in vitro cell culture system is the ability to grow single cell types and study their cell morphology, RNA and protein composition and their response to addition of exogeneous molecules in their microenvironment, such as cell signal molecules, dietary components, or potential therapeutics. The utility of such experimental designs has been substantially amplified by our ability to generate and expand human neuronal and glial cell types to significant quantities. An important feature often not appreciated is that in vitro neurodevelopment allows the experimenter to follow the progression of cell differentiation, and such studies have shown that the cells derived from patients diagnosed with a Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD) often exhibit altered in vitro neurodevelopmental timing.Currently, 2D in vitro cell culture…
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