Human assembloid model of the ascending neural sensory pathway

Somatosensory pathways convey crucial information about pain, touch, itch and body part movement from peripheral organs to the central nervous system1,2. Despite substantial needs to understand how these pathways assemble and to develop pain therapeutics, clinical translation remains challenging. This is probably related to species-specific features and the lack of in vitro models of the polysynaptic pathway. Here we established a human ascending somatosensory assembloid (hASA), a four-part assembloid generated from human pluripotent stem cells that integrates somatosensory, spinal, thalamic and cortical organoids to model the spinothalamic pathway. Transcriptomic profiling confirmed the presence of key cell types of this circuit. Rabies tracing and calcium imaging showed that sensory neurons connect to dorsal spinal cord neurons, which further connect to thalamic neurons. Following noxious chemical stimulation, calcium imaging of hASA demonstrated a coordinated response. In addition, extracellular recordings and imaging revealed synchronized activity across the assembloid. Notably, loss of the sodium channel NaV1.7, which causes pain insensitivity, disrupted synchrony across hASA. By contrast, a gain-of-function SCN9A variant associated with extreme pain disorder induced hypersynchrony. These experiments demonstrated the ability to functionally assemble the essential components of the human sensory pathway, which could accelerate our understanding of sensory circuits and facilitate therapeutic development.