Human cell-based models of many brain diseases have been established by reprogramming patient somatic cells into human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Although hiPSC neurons are electrophysiologically active, gene expression patterns indicate that they are immature relative to those in the human brain.5,6 hiPSCs can be differentiated into cortical pyramidal7 and interneuron fate,5,8 but these neurons require months to fully mature in vitro and generally lack myelination.9,10 Conversely, neural progenitor cells (NPCs) are a highly replicative neural population capable of rapidly initiating neuronal differentiation; they are easily assayed and particularly well suited to scalability. Given these advantages, we hoped to identify cellular phenotypes in SZ hiPSC NPCs that might be suitable for screening larger cohorts of SZ patients.
