NeMO Analytics Compiles Transcriptomic Data for Exploration of Neocortical Development

Newly developed NeMO Analytics serves as an open-access web portal empowering researchers to investigate human brain development and disease through detailed neocortex mapping. Led by investigators at Johns Hopkins Medicine, this resource draws from nearly 200 published studies and over 30 million cells to chart how the neocortex—the brain's outer layers responsible for thinking, sensing, processing, storing information, and decision-making—develops over time.

According to Carlo Colantuoni, senior author of the study published in Nature Neuroscience, “Our goal is to understand how the neocortex is built on a cellular level, and identify clues to the earliest stages of developmental delays and brain disorders. By mapping the cell transitions and genes that give rise to the intricate structure and function of the neocortex, we can better understand, and then attempt to treat, disorders that arise in the womb, during infancy and childhood, and even much later in life.”

The portal, now available at nemoanalytics.org/landing/neocortex/, allows users without coding expertise to explore expression patterns of individual genes, chart coordinated gene modules active during development, and contribute their own data to grow the resource. This enhanced atlas reveals granular developmental stages, distinguishing typical growth from origins of neurodevelopmental delays and diseases such as microcephaly, which hinders prenatal brain growth and affects autism spectrum disorder.

Supporting this blueprint, the team created human, mammal, and mouse neocortex models. These show gene expression programs originating as diffuse networks millions of years ago, recently focused in human neural stem cells to expand the neocortex. Such evolutionary refinement partly explains advanced human cognitive abilities over other animals.

Data also traces neuron maturation, extended in humans—spanning years versus weeks in mice—to handle complex social, environmental, and sensory inputs during prolonged development.