Netanel Loyfer

Introducing Pleiades-Neuron: a new model that can identify neuronal cell-free DNA in blood, achieving a part-per-million threshold. When neurons die, they release fragments of DNA into the bloodstream but at extremely low concentrations. Our model distinguishes neuron-derived cell-free DNA at levels as low as one part-per-million. It is 4.4× more sensitive than existing methods, and in early tests across patient samples demonstrated utility across a number of brain-related conditions. Performance improved as we scaled the size of our training corpus. It also improved with model size, with no plateau yet based on probing experiments up to 7B parameters. This could enable simple blood tests for earlier detection, prognostic monitoring, and treatment response determination in diseases of and injuries to the brain.