Allen Institute Launches AI-Powered Brain Knowledge Platform for Open Neuroscience

Built with cloud plus AI partners, the open resource standardizes brain-cell data to help researchers compare diseases, accelerating the path from discovery to experiments.

Overview

The platform debuts with harmonized data from more than 34 million cells spanning 22 species, including humans, mice, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques.
AI models enable natural-language search and cross-condition comparisons so scientists can examine how the same cell type behaves in healthy brains and in disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
An integrated catalog of genetic tools and datasets is available, including over 80 mouse whole-brain light-sheet images, approximately 3,000 in vivo expression datasets, and more than 1,700 AAV reagents representing over 1,000 cortical enhancers.
The initiative targets a shared taxonomy for brain cell types, described as a universal translator for neuroscience and likened by experts to the role the Human Genome Project played for genes.
Core infrastructure was built with Amazon Web Services and AI developed with Google, with support from the NIH BRAIN Initiative and a commitment to open access.