A newly released dataset of 1.2M cells from 84 brain donors across the spectrum of Alzheimer’s shines a light on the neurodegenerative disease’s cellular roots. Produced by the Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Cell Atlas consortium, an NIA-funded collaboration of Seattle-area scientists headquartered at the Allen Institute, the data capture several different aspects of the cellular and molecular underpinnings of this disease. The image above from the Allen Institute team shows brain cells from all 84 donors clustered and colored by the type of cell (left) or by the level of Alzheimer’s-related proteins present (right, yellow is high and blue is low). The scientists used genes switched on in individual brain cells to categorize them into discrete types, methods first used to understand the basic cellular building blocks of a healthy brain and which are now being applied to study disease at a new level of resolution. — Rachel Tompa, Ph.D.

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