Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

If Human Brain Organoids Are the Answer to Understanding Dementia, What Are the Questions?

2020; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 26; Issue: 5-6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1073858420912404

1089-4098

Lezanne Ooi, Mirella Dottori, Anthony L. Cook, Martin Engel, Vini Gautam, Alexandra Grubman, Damián Hernández, Anna E. King, Simon Maksour, Helena Targa Dias Anastacio, Rachelle Balez, Alice Pébay, Colin W. Pouton, Michael Valenzuela, Anthony R. White, Robert Williamson,

Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations

Because our beliefs regarding our individuality, autonomy, and personhood are intimately bound up with our brains, there is a public fascination with cerebral organoids, the “mini-brain,” the “brain in a dish”. At the same time, the ethical issues around organoids are only now being explored. What are the prospects of using human cerebral organoids to better understand, treat, or prevent dementia? Will human organoids represent an improvement on the current, less-than-satisfactory, animal models? When considering these questions, two major issues arise. One is the general challenge associated with using any stem cell–generated preparation for in vitro modelling (challenges amplified when using organoids compared with simpler cell culture systems). The other relates to complexities associated with defining and understanding what we mean by the term “dementia.” We discuss 10 puzzles, issues, and stumbling blocks to watch for in the quest to model “dementia in a dish.”