Brain Disorders - GoKawiil

Researchers build single-cell atlas linking gene expression to brain disorders

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

PsychAD study builds cell-type gene expression models from over 6 million brain nuclei

Researchers from the PsychAD consortium describe training single-nucleus transcriptomic imputation models (snTIMs) using single-nucleus RNA sequencing data from more than 6 million nuclei drawn from brain tissue of 1,494 donors. The work involved dividing donors into ancestry groups, harmonizing genotype data across multiple sequencing and array platforms, and building ancestry-specific reference panels to align training and target cohorts, including data from the Million Veteran Program.

nature.com · 2026-09-23