Spatial Proteomics Identifies Plaque-Associated Microglia in Alzheimer's Brains

Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains the leading cause of dementia, characterized by a progressive decline in memory and cognition driven by a complex mix of genetic, environmental, and age-related factors [1, 2]. Current therapeutic strategies offer primarily symptomatic relief rather than altering the disease course, highlighting an urgent need to better understand its fundamental mechanisms [1, 3]. Growing evidence implicates neuroinflammation, mediated by the brain's resident immune cells, the microglia, as a critical element in AD pathogenesis [4, 5, 6]. However, microglia exist in diverse functional states, and characterizing this heterogeneity to pinpoint which subsets contribute to pathology in human brain tissue has proven difficult [4, 7]. A recent study introduces a high-resolution imaging and analysis platform to map this complex cellular landscape with greater precision [8].