“The Role of Thalamic Afferents in Cortical Fate Specification in Fused Organoids”

Claudia Nguyen, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, received IFER funding from 2024-2025 for her project, “The Role of Thalamic Afferents in Cortical Fate Specification in Fused Organoids.” Claudia is planning to study human brain development using organoids and will specifically examine how the thalamus influences gene expression and cell types of the cortex. Claudia will create organoids of both brain regions and fuse them together and monitor changes across three timepoints during development, compared to a control in which only cortical organoids are fused. She will compare the data obtained from her model to data collected from human cortex and thalamus tissues at different stages of development. This approach will reduce reliance on animals, which are commonly used in neuroscience research, while also providing a baseline of events that take place during typical brain development, which will be useful for understanding neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.