β-Amyloid (Aβ) deposition is a commonly studied neuropathology in the human brain, occurring as compact and diffuse parenchymal plaques, cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), and meningeal/subpial amyloidosis. Compact plaques associated with dystrophic neurites generally referred to as neuritic plaques, are a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We evaluated three recently developed monoclonal mouse antibodies against Aβ (A1, A2 and A3) using appropriate tissue samples and assay controls in the present study. In immunohistochemistry, antibodies A1, A2 and A3 displayed all forms of cerebral Aβ deposition in a range of dilutions in cryostat and paraffin sections. These labeled profiles appeared morphologically comparable to that visualized by two commercial Aβ antibody clones, 6E10 and D12B2. In immune-dot blotting assays, antibodies A1, A2 and A3 at highly diluted concentrations detected an increase of Aβ in neocortical lysates of AD samples compared to control. Moreover, these antibodies clearly labeled Aβ pathology in brain sections of three commonly used transgenic mouse models of AD, namely, APP/PS1 mice, 5XFAD mice, and 3XTg-AD mice. Taken together, these monoclonal mouse anti-Aβ antibodies can serve as new experimental tools for basic, translational, and diagnostic research into aging and AD-related cerebral Aβ neuropathology in both human and experimental animal brains.   

Neuropsychiatric disorders affect hundreds of millions of people and their families worldwide. Many studies have used human postmortem brain samples to decipher the molecular framework of these diseases. These studies uncovered brain-specific genetic and epigenetic patterns using high-throughput sequencing techniques. Therefore, determining the best way to collect human postmortem brain samples, analysing such a large amount of sequencing data, and interpreting these results is critical to advancing the field of neuropsychiatric sciences. By collecting postmortem/biopsied neural tissues and information about the diseases and life of donors, human brain banks support the observation and research of human brain sciences. Furthermore, the construction of large-scale brain banks has promoted the exploration of human brain morphology and function, development and ageing, as well as the mechanism of many neuropsychiatric diseases, which progressively reveal the normal mechanism of human brain activities and lead the direction of the prevention and treatment of neurological diseases. This article introduces the significance of human brain tissue bank construction and the current situation of the human brain tissue bank worldwide, as well as an overview of neurology or neuroscience advanced by using human brain samples.

Microglia are tissue-resident macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS) that play crucial roles in development, homeostasis, and response to perturbation. Microglia react to the surrounding environment in a context-dependent manner. However, research on microglial heterogeneity is limited, given the lack of high-resolution and high-sensitivity methods. Recent studies have demonstrated the heterogeneity of microglia on a spatial-temporal scale, benefiting from the advancement of single-cell technologies. Here, we review the current knowledge about microglial diversity during physiological and pathological conditions in humans and mice.

Human brain research is essential to neuroscience, and several generations of brain scientists have contributed to this field. In 1861, French surgeon Pierre Paul Broca described two patients unable to speak after injury to the posterior inferior frontal gyrus of the brain through autopsy. This work lays the foundation for modern neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience (Dronkers et al., 
2007). Furthermore, the deficit in language production was known as Broca’s aphasia, and the approximate region involved in the brain was named Broca’s area. In 1907, a German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer described the presence of extraneuronal senile plaques and intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles in the case of brain autopsy from a patient who had progressive presenile dementia with general cortical atrophy (Trejo-Lopez et al., 2022). The neurodegenerative disorder was later named Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Several approaches have emerged in the past century regarding the diagnostic technologies and underlying mechanisms of AD to diagnose AD. However, the two original biomarkers (i.e. senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles) discovered by Dr Alzheimer are still considered the “golden criteria” for the neuropathological 
diagnosis of the disease. 
With the rapid progress of modern neurology  and neurosurgery, several novel techniques have been invented to obtain detailed information from the human brain and/or obtain human brain tissue samples with various physiological and pathological conditions. These techniques mainly include neuroimaging (such as computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, positron 
emission tomography, magnetoencephalography, and electroencephalography), neuro-intervention, and microneurosurgery. On the other hand, further progress of radiosurgery, psychosurgery, robotization, biotechnology, and nanotechnology may also facilitate human brain research (Nikova & Birbilis, 2017). The developments in all these 
technologies have paved the way for a new era of brain research. 
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative was announced in 2013 by the US government, focusing on innovative technologies for a better understanding of the human brain and further 
diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of brain disorders (Insel, 2013). The same year, the Human Brain Project, a European Commission Future and Emerging Technologies Flagship, was also started. 
However, it remained controversial due to the decreased emphasis on experimental neuroscience and the brain itself (Frégnac & Laurent, 2014). The China Brain Project was first proposed in 2016 with a framework of “one body, two wings”, 107 Jizong Zhao (2022)