For pregnant women, exposure to fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) was associated with altered immune responses that can lead to adverse birth outcomes, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study is the first to examine the relationship between PM2.5 and maternal and fetal health on a single-cell level and highlights the health risk of PM2.5 exposure for pregnant women.

Brain-wide association studies, which use magnetic resonance imaging to identify relationships between brain structure or function and human behavior or health, have faced criticism for producing results that often cannot be replicated by other researchers. A new study published in Nature offers practical guidance for scientists designing future brain imaging studies, potentially helping them obtain reliable results with fewer participants. 

A decade ago, researchers introduced a new model for studying Alzheimer’s disease. Known as “Alzheimer’s in a dish,” the model uses cultures of mature brain cells suspended in a gel to recapitulate what takes place in the human brain over 10 to 13 years in just six weeks. But does the model truly produce the same changes that take place in patients? In a new study, researchers from Mass General Brigham, in collaboration with colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), created an algorithm to assess, in an unbiased manner, how well models of Alzheimer’s disease mimic the function and gene expression patterns seen in patients’ brains.  Their results, published in Neuron, identify crucial shared pathways, confirming that the Alzheimer’s in a dish model can be used to assess new drugs accurately and rapidly as well as point the way to drug discovery.