MouseMapper AI Uncovers Obesity-Linked Trigeminal Nerve Damage

Obesity is known to disrupt metabolic, immune and nervous systems, but researchers have lacked tools to examine disease-driven cellular changes across an intact body. An international team led by Helmholtz Munich and LMU Klinikum developed MouseMapper, combining tissue clearing, light-sheet microscopy, deep learning and a foundation-model architecture to map nerves, immune cells, organs and tissues throughout whole mice.

The study, published in Nature on May 20, 2026, showed MouseMapper can automatically segment 31 organs and tissue types while resolving fine nerve branches and immune-cell clusters. In mice with diet-induced obesity, researchers found structural damage in the infraorbital branch of the trigeminal nerve, accompanied by impaired whisker sensation. Proteomic analysis identified changes involving axon remodeling and complement pathways, with related molecular signatures also detected in trigeminal ganglia from people with obesity.