COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 is a socioeconomic burden exhibiting respiratory illness along with unexpected neurological complications. This raised concerns about whether the observed neurological symptoms are due to direct effects on CNS or associated with the virus’s systemic effect. Recent SARS-CoV-2 infection studies using human brain organoids revealed that SARS-CoV-2 targets human neurons. Human brain organoids are stem cell-derived reductionist experimental systems that have highlighted the neurotropic effects of SARS-CoV-2. In this review article, the authors summarise the neurotoxic effects of SARS-CoV-2 using brain organoids and comprehensively discuss how brain organoids could further improve our understanding when they are fine-tuned.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.02.007