Open AccessStem Cells for Improving the Treatment of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Author(s) -
Jennifer J. Donegan,
Daniel J. Lodge
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
stem cells and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1557-8534
pISSN - 1547-3287
DOI - 10.1089/scd.2019.0265
Subject(s) - autism , induced pluripotent stem cell , neurodevelopmental disorder , biology , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , disease , stem cell , neuroscience , neural stem cell , bioinformatics , embryonic stem cell , psychiatry , medicine , genetics , gene
Treatment options for neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism are currently limited. Antipsychotics used to treat schizophrenia are not effective for all patients, do not target all symptoms of the disease, and have serious adverse side effects. There are currently no FDA-approved drugs to treat the core symptoms of autism. In an effort to develop new and more effective treatment strategies, stem cell technologies have been used to reprogram adult somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be differentiated into neuronal cells and even three-dimensional brain organoids. This new technology has the potential to elucidate the complex mechanisms that underlie neurodevelopmental disorders, offer more relevant platforms for drug discovery and personalized medicine, and may even be used to treat the disease.