An NIH-funded partnership called the PsychAD Consortium has published the largest single-cell map of the human prefrontal cortex, drawing on sequencing data from more than six million cells from nearly 1,500 people. The findings appear across eight studies, including three papers in Nature, and detail gene activity in neurons, immune cells and vascular cells in this brain region tied to planning and emotional regulation.
nature.com
· 2026-09-23
A multi-institution research effort combined brain tissue samples from the Mount Sinai NIH Neurobiobank, the NIMH-IRP Human Brain Collection Core, and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center to create a harmonized dataset spanning over 1,400 samples. The team standardized clinical measures such as neuritic plaque density (CERAD scores) and cognitive impairment ratings across the different cohorts, alongside demographic and technical variables like age, sex, ancestry and postmortem interval, to enable consistent single-cell transcriptomic analysis of brain disorders.
nature.com
· 2026-09-23
Researchers analyzed human brain tissue samples from people with and without Alzheimer's disease and identified more than 1,000 microproteins that had previously gone undetected. Dozens of these small proteins showed different expression levels in Alzheimer's-affected brains compared with healthy ones. Separately, a mouse study found that immune cells activated by gut infections can travel to the brain's protective membrane and remain there as a lasting defensive memory.
nature.com
· 2026-09-16
Researchers propose that Alzheimer's disease progresses through distinct molecular and cellular phases marked by biological thresholds, rather than a simple straight-line path from amyloid buildup to Tau pathology to neurodegeneration. At these thresholds, cells lose homeostatic balance and shift behavior, with these altered states spreading unevenly across brain tissue and eventually reaching regions critical to cognition. A key threshold identified is when amyloid triggers Tau phosphorylation, marking the transition from amyloid-driven tissue states to ones dominated by neuronal stress responses.
nature.com
· 2026-09-16
Scientists at the Salk Institute and collaborators combined multiple detection techniques to identify over 4,300 previously unrecognized 'microproteins' in postmortem brain tissue from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, comparing samples from people with and without Alzheimer's disease. Dozens of these tiny proteins, each under 150 amino acids, showed altered levels in Alzheimer's patients, and the findings were published in Nature Aging on September 14.
nature.com
· 2026-09-16
A scientist who has logged 10,000 papers in a reference manager over 13 years describes moving from trying to read every paper closely to a selective, task-driven approach to the literature. The piece also warns that AI tools like ChatGPT, despite improved search and summarization, still risk producing uncritical or fabricated citations if used without careful reading.
nature.com
· 2026-09-01
Researchers at KAIST and the Institute for Basic Science, using APP/PS1 and 5×FAD mouse models along with human brain tissue from a Seoul National University Hospital bank, examined the role of the ERBB4 protein in excitatory neurons. Their experiments indicate that abnormal expression of ERBB4 in these neurons contributes to the progression of Alzheimer's disease-related brain changes.
nature.com
· 2026-08-26
GoKawiil