AI atlas reveals hidden whole-body-damage caused by obesity

Researchers from Helmholtz Munich, LMU Munich, and collaborators have developed AI framework MouseMapper to map disease-related changes throughout the entire mouse body at cellular resolution.
MouseMapper revealed widespread inflammation and damage to facial sensory nerves in obese mice, uncovering systemic effects of obesity beyond metabolic changes.
The AI framework identified corresponding molecular signatures in human tissue, suggesting preserved features of obesity-associated nerve damage across species.
The MouseMapper platform segments 31 organs and tissue types while quantitatively mapping nerves and immune cells, enabling comprehensive multi-system analysis.
The study also showed that previously unknown structural and molecular changes occur in the trigeminal nerve in both obese mice and humans.
The researchers envision MouseMapper as a transformative tool for studying systemic diseases, including diabetes, cancer, and neurodegeneration.
They have made the whole-body datasets publicly available to allow broader scientific exploration of systemic disease effects.