Understanding the development and dysfunction of the human brain is a major goal of neurobiology. Much of our current understanding of human brain development has been derived from the examination of post-mortem and pathological specimens, bolstered by observations of developing non-human primates and experimental studies focused largely on mouse models. However, these tissue specimens and model systems cannot fully capture the unique and dynamic features of human brain development. Recent advances in stem cell technologies that enable the generation of human brain organoids from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) promise to profoundly change our understanding of the development of the human brain and enable a detailed study of the pathogenesis of inherited and acquired brain diseases.

中文翻译：

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使用脑类器官来研究神经发育和疾病

了解人脑的发育和功能障碍是神经生物学的主要目标。我们目前对人类大脑发育的大部分理解都来自对尸体解剖和病理学标本的检查，这些证据得到了对非人类灵长类动物发育的观察以及主要针对小鼠模型的实验研究的支持。但是，这些组织标本和模型系统无法完全捕捉人脑发育的独特和动态特征。干细胞技术的最新进展使人们能够从多能干细胞（PSC）生成人脑类器官，这有望深刻改变我们对人脑发育的理解，并能够详细研究遗传性和后天性脑病的发病机理。