Although astrocyte co-cultures have yet to be utilized to model neuropsychiatric disease, these studies are very promising, particularly the human-only system employed by Kuijlaars et al. (2016). Human neuron-astrocyte co-culture systems may be useful not only for improved neuronal maturation but also for elucidating astrocyte contribution to the disease state, especially taking into consideration the role of astrocytes in modulating synaptic connection and signaling (Goudriaan et al., 2014). Post-mortem tissue studies have shown decreases in astrocyte density in certain regions (Williams et al., 2013) and increases in astrocyte markers and neuroinflammation in a subset of patients (Catts et al., 2014). Co-culturing astrocytes and neurons derived from the same patient may more closely mimic the cellular and molecular dynamics of the individual disease state. Additionally, co-culturing patient astrocytes with healthy control neurons and healthy control astrocytes may help elucidate the contribution of each cell type to SZ etiology.
