Brain health

As emerging scientific evidence points to shared genetic risk factors and biological mechanisms across different brain disorders, the Broad Program in Brain Health connects efforts such as the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research with other initiatives such as Prions@Broad, the NeuroDevelopmental Variability Initiative, the Psychiatric Biomarkers Network, and the Center for Human Brain Variation to accelerate progress across the field of brain health. The program achieves this by breaking down the siloes between fields, linking basic neuroscience with scalable ‘omics and AI approaches as well as disease-focused research, and fostering real-time collaboration and data sharing.

Together, Broad scientists are generating foundational datasets, building better models of the human brain, and applying emerging technologies to uncover disease mechanisms and identify new and critically needed biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

The program’s ultimate goal is to improve outcomes for patients across a wide range of brain disorders. This includes Huntington’s disease, with investigators seeking to delay or prevent disease by targeting the DNA repeat expansion that a Broad team discovered actually drives disease. Broad scientists are also combining cutting-edge technologies such as the latest single-cell sequencing and spatial technologies, advanced cellular models, and computational models to understand how our immune systems may play a role in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's disease. These are just some of the interdisciplinary, highly collaborative, and out-of-the box ways the Broad is tackling brain health.