Modelling attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: From hair follicles to neurons using induced pluripotent stem cells

Despite tremendous research efforts, the exact causative mechanisms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) still have to be elucidated. One major challenge is the difficulty to reflect the complexity and simultaneously the individual features of ADHD with the current in vitro or in vivo model systems. A new strategy to circumvent this problem is to develop a patient specific research model of a «small personalized brain» in a dish using the induced pluripotent stem cell technology. This approach has now been initiated for the first time in Switzerland at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich