Fig. 2

The development of 3D cerebral organoids. Stem-cell technology was developed in 1981; human embryonic stem cells were successfully differentiated into various types of neural cells (e.g., neural stem cells and embryonic ganglion cells) in 1998; mature human somatic cells were reprogrammed into human stem cells in 2007; Matrigel, a gel-like extracellular matrix, became available in 2011. These developments were prerequisites for the emergence of cerebral organoids. In 2013, Lancaster et al. first used hiPSCs for whole-cerebral organoid differentiation. Later, Dang et al. reported that 30-day-old human cerebral organoids have similar gene expression as in the fetal brain (8–9 weeks of pregnancy). Subsequently, a number of CNS disease models were developed based on cerebral organoids