In a bid to better understand, and potentially treat, a host of conditions that affect early cognition, neurodevelopment and the brain later in life, investigators at Johns Hopkins Medicine and colleagues throughout the world have been mapping the molecular construction of the human brain. These models, which are supported in part by federal and international research grants, are helping researchers study genetic links and pathways involved in a variety of conditions, ranging from autism spectrum disorder, which affects about 1 in 31, or 3%, of children in the U.S., to Alzheimer’s disease, which is estimated to affect more than 7 million U.S. adults, including 1 in 9, or 11%, age 65 and older.   

To support this blueprint, Carlo Colantuoni, Ph.D., an adjunct professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and other researchers have, in their most recent study, which publishes March 25 in Nature Neuroscience, brought together data from nearly 200 published studies and more than 30 million cells to advance insight about how the neocortex, the outermost layers of the brain, develops and forms over time. This region of the brain is responsible for a variety of functions, including how we think, sense, process and store information, and make decisions.

A team from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has discovered a novel way in which tumor cells alter the brain to establish themselves and spread cancer. They also demonstrate that a drug that prevents this process already exists and is approved for other indications. The finding is published in the journal ‘Cancer Research’.

An international team led by the ITACA Institute at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) has developed one of the most comprehensive and detailed structural atlases of the human brain to date. Known as HoliAtlas, it will be particularly useful for the study and early diagnosis of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

The new map is based on ultra-high-resolution multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and far exceeds the level of detail found in existing MRI-based atlases.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports (Nature), was led by Professor José V. Manjón, coordinator of the MIALAB group at ITACA-UPV, in collaboration with international institutions such as the CNRS and the University of Bordeaux, as well as Spanish and European centres.