(NPR) – First, he and his team used skin cells from Timothy syndrome patients to grow neurons in a dish that carried the mutation. Then the team moved on to studying the mutation in brain organoids — living clusters of human neurons that assemble themselves into structures that resemble specific types of brain tissue.

Next, Pasca’s team created brain “assembloids,” which involve several organoids that form connections and interact, much the way areas of a developing brain do. (Read More)