Mount Sinai and BPGbio scientists uncover novel molecular drivers from live brain samples that direct human brain structure and function from early development through aging:
- Creates a completely new molecular understanding of live aging human brain
- Reveals cellular senescence as a key component of brain structure and degeneration
- Marks a new era for precision therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
- Validates a large-scale living-human brain platform, advancing the shift from postmortem to living human tissue in neurological disease research
NEW YORK, NY and BOSTON, MA — [Feburary 2, 2026] — A groundbreaking study published today in the journal CELL and led by researchers from the Living Brain Project at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with support from BPGbio has revealed that cellular senescence—a process long viewed as a passive biological marker of aging—is in fact an active, regulated biological program that shapes the structure of the human brain across an individual’s lifespan.
Using living cortical brain tissue collected from 141 neurosurgical patients during routine deep brain stimulation surgeries, combined with MRI imaging and advanced multi-omics analyses through Mount Sinai’s landmark Living Brain Project, the team produced the first direct molecular map connecting living cellular biology to human brain architecture.
Analyzing more than 100,000 individual cells, the researchers created a “cellular GPS” for the molecular roadmap of the aging brain—tracing how the activity of distinct cell types influences brain structure, adaptation, and degeneration.
“For generations, scientists have relied on postmortem tissue to study brain disorders,” said Alexander Charney, M.D., Ph.D., Director, The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine and Vice Chair, Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health and co-lead of The Living Brain Project at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and co-senior author. “By leveraging an invaluable resource, live brain specimens obtained from routine procedures, coupled with not just one layer of biology, genomics, but multiomics we were able to interrogate living human brain tissue at a scale and depth never before possible. This approach connects molecular activity directly to brain structure, setting the stage for a new era of biologically informed therapeutic strategies based on the molecular function of specific cell types.”
The preservation of molecular integrity in live brain provides unprecedented insight into brain function. The resulting large-scale dataset offers a blueprint for understanding how molecular activity drives brain aging—and is now poised to be mined by BPGbio’s causal AI platform NAi® to uncover new therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases.
“This is the first study to directly link senescence–related molecular networks in living human brain tissue to measurable changes in brain structure within the same individuals,” said Noam Beckmann Ph.D., Director of Data Sciences and founding member for the Mount Sinai Clinical Intelligence Center and co-senior author. “We show that this relationship is present across the human lifespan, from development through aging, highlighting senescence as a fundamental biological feature of brain aging and neurodegenerative disease.”
