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REVIEW ARTICLE
Brain organoids: An innovative model for central

nervous system diseases in neurosurgery

Fuming Yang 1 , Jian Wang , Zhu’anzhen Zheng , Guosheng Han * , and Jie Zhang *
2
2
1
3
1 Department of Neurosurgery, Translational Research Institute of Brain and Brain-Like Intelligence, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital
Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
2 Institute of Translational Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
3 Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Disease and Aging Research, Institute of Neuroscience, Medical College, Xiamen
University, Xiamen, Fujian, China
*Corresponding authors: Guosheng Han (hgsxing72@163.com); Jie Zhang (jiezhang@xmu.edu.cn)

Citation: Yang F, Wang J, Zheng Z, Abstract
Han G, Zhang J. Brain organoids: An
innovative model for central nervous
system diseases in neurosurgery. Central nervous system (CNS) plays an important role in regulating sensory
Organoid Res. 2025;1(1):8261. perception, cognition, motor control, and homeostasis. However, these functions
doi: 10.36922/or.8261 can be impaired by diseases such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), glioblastoma
Received: December 27, 2024 multiforme (GBM), and Parkinson’s disease (PD), thereby reducing life quality.
Traditional experimental models fall short in capturing CNS pathology. Brain
Revised: February 26, 2025
organoids (BOs), derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells and human
Accepted: March 14, 2025 embryonic stem cells, replicate human brain structure and function, offering new
Published online: March 24, 2025 insights into CNS diseases. TBI-induced neural death and neuroinflammation
can be modeled using BOs but further refinement is required to mirror
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s). This
is an Open-Access article distributed complex brain architecture. For GBM, BOs provide insights into the tumor
under the terms of the Creative microenvironment and glioblastoma stem cells behavior, aiding drug screening.
Commons Attribution License, In PD research, BOs replicate dopaminergic neuron loss, but long-term stability
permitting distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, which provided that the and reproducibility remain challenging. While BOs offer improved insight into
original work is properly cited. CNS pathology, key challenges remain, including the need for better simulation
Publisher’s Note: AccScience of brain complexity, long-term stability, and reproducibility. In this review, we
Publishing remains neutral with regard focus on the application of BOs in modeling neurological diseases related to
to jurisdictional claims in published neurosurgical practice. We also discuss their application scenarios, construction
maps and institutional affiliations. strategies, and clinical relevance, aiming to provide a reference for further
research on organoid-based models, addressing the limitations of traditional
models.

Keywords: Brain organoids; Traumatic brain injury; Glioblastoma; Parkinson’s disease;
Disease modeling; Drug screening; Personalized medicine

1. Introduction lacking the complex diversity and organization seen in
brain organoids (BOs). BOs, in contrast, are advanced
1-5
The central nervous system (CNS) plays a fundamental
role in regulating numerous essential bodily functions, models that recapitulate the human brain’s cellular diversity
including sensory perception, cognition, voluntary and and developmental trajectories with high fidelity. They
involuntary motor control, and the maintenance of generate a wide range of cell types, including neurons,
physiological homeostasis. Traditional three-dimensional astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes and follow precise
(3D) models such as neurospheres and spheroids are developmental paths, making them a comprehensive and
simpler cell aggregates focused on neural progenitors reliable tool for studying neurodevelopmental processes.
or specific cell types, useful for basic neural studies but Nevertheless, standardization of BOs confronts significant

Volume 1 Issue 1 (2025) 1 doi: 10.36922/or.8261