  Morphogenesis in the central nervous system has received intensive attention
as elucidating fundamental mechanisms of morphogenesis will shed light on the
physiology and pathophysiology of the developing central nervous system.
Morphogenesis of the central nervous system is of a vast topic that includes
important morphogenetic events such as neurulation and cortical folding. Here
we review three types of methods used to improve our understanding of
morphogenesis of the central nervous system: in vivo experiments, organoids (in
vitro), and computational models (in silico). The in vivo experiments are used
to explore cellular- and tissue-level mechanics and interpret them on the roles
of neurulation morphogenesis. Recent advances in human brain organoids have
provided new opportunities to study morphogenesis and neurogenesis to
compensate for the limitations of in vivo experiments, as organoid models are
able to recapitulate some critical neural morphogenetic processes during early
human brain development. Due to the complexity and costs of in vivo and in
vitro studies, a variety of computational models have been developed and used
to explain the formation and morphogenesis of brain structures. We review and
discuss the Pros and Cons of these methods and their usage in the studies on
morphogenesis of the central nervous system. Notably, none of these methods
alone is sufficient to unveil the biophysical mechanisms of morphogenesis, thus
calling for the interdisciplinary approaches using a combination of these
methods in order to test hypotheses and generate new insights on both normal
and abnormal development of the central nervous system.
