Next-Generation Disease Models for Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Organoids, iPSC-Derived Circuits, and Gene Editing
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Neurobiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 3
Special Issue Editor
Interests: depression; anxiety; dementia; pain; comorbidity; translational research
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue highlights experimental model systems that narrow the distance between human neuropsychiatric biology and conventional preclinical platforms. Rapid progress in brain organoids, assembloids, and iPSC-derived neurons and glia now enables direct interrogation of human circuit development, synaptic dysfunction, and neuroimmune crosstalk, while CRISPR-based strategies permit precise disruption or correction of disease relevant alleles.
We invite cutting edge studies that use organoids or iPSC-based circuits to capture complex genetic architectures, polygenic risk, and comorbid trajectories across the lifespan. Work integrating patient-derived cells to mirror treatment response, drug resistance, or longitudinal clinical phenotypes is especially welcome, including reverse translational pipelines that channel clinical insight back into reductionist models.
High-throughput pharmacology, scalable screening platforms, and computational frameworks that merge electrophysiology, imaging, and multimodal omics are strongly encouraged. Submissions may span mechanistic discovery, target validation, and early translational testing of individualized interventions, including gene editing strategies and rational combination therapies. By gathering these next-generation models into one collection, this Special Issue aims to set new benchmarks for disease modeling in psychiatry and to accelerate the route from human relevant cellular circuits to clinically actionable innovation.
Dr. Masaru Tanaka
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- brain organoids
- induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)
- neural stem cells
- CRISPER-CAS systems (CRISPR)
- neuropsychiatric disorders
- neurodevelopmental disorders
- synaptic transmission
- neuroinflammation
- drug discovery
- animal disease models
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