Research of mental disorders that affect mainly unique human traits or higher brain function will benefit greatly from the introduction of live human tissues relevant to account for the phenotypes. Human neuronal cell models allow for precise molecular and functional characterization of patient phenotypes and genetic backgrounds. Sources of human cell types discussed here include cellular reprogramming of patient somatic cell lines (either first to pluripotency or directly to neuronal cells) and biopsy of olfactory tissue. Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are particularly useful to study developmental trajectories and functional activity in many disease-relevant cell types. In fact, several attempts have been made to use iPS cell-derived neurons to study schizophrenia and other psychiatric disease. iPS cell technology consists of very high-cost and laborious experiments that may be ameliorated by a recent, more short-term cell conversion technique to obtain directly induced neuronal (iN) cells from somatic cell lines. Moreover, neuronal cells from olfactory epithelium (OE) biopsy have yielded promising research in that they serve as a reasonable surrogate for the brain without adding any genetic manipulation. These human cell models should be integrated with current clinical psychiatric and functional characterizations as well as animal models to progress the translational and clinical applications of basic research.
© Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.