Assessment of neurochemistry in human-derived cerebral organoids using high-resolution magic angle spinning NMR

Cerebral organoids are self-organizing three-dimensional clusters of brain tissue, derived from human pluripotent stem cells. A new and rapidly advancing technology, cerebral organoids serve as an important model system for human brain research. In this study, we used high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) NMR to characterize the neurochemical profile of ~100-day old cerebral organoids. High-quality spectra were obtained with excellent spectral resolution. More than 17 metabolites were detected, including many resonances commonly observed in the brain in vivo (e.g. choline, creatine, glutamate, GABA, etc.). Notably, NAA was absent. Future work will assess cerebral organoids at later stages of maturity.