Pluripotent stem cell for modeling neurological diseases

The availability of human pluriopotent stem cells, embryonic (ESC) and induced pluriopotent (iPSC) stem cells, not only can be a renewable source for investigating the early human development, etiology and progression of different diseases but also recapitulating the disease with the same genomic materials of the patient. In particular, specific neuronal subtypes generated from the patient ESC/iPSCs has become a source for studying disease mechanisms underlying different neurological disorders and allowed drug discovery. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in establishing patient ESC/iPSC to model various neurological diseases. We will also discuss the challenges and limitations of the current disease models and their potential future applications for untangling the unknowns in neurological disorders. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.