Cell: successfully mapped 1000 neurons in mouse brain

September 16, 2019 / Biovalley BIOON / - -- in a new study, researchers from the Jennifer research center of the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute in the United States carefully unraveled more than 1000 entangled neurons, tracking the branching path of each cell in the brain to determine its whereabouts and which cells are connected If placed end-to-end, the neurons would stretch more than 80 meters, about the length of two school buses, they report Relevant research results were recently published in the Journal of cell, and the title of the paper is "reconstruction of 1000 project neurons reviews new cell types and organization of long range connectivity in the mouse brain" Picture from cell, 2019, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.07.042 When jayaram chandrashekar and his colleagues started their neuromapping two years ago, neuroscientists had a general idea of which areas of the mammalian brain talk to each other But the structure of information transfer in the brain is largely a mystery A complete neural circuit map can help scientists better understand how the brain is connected and how information is transmitted through this neural circuit In October 2017, the neuron tracking project team mouselight released the data of the first 300 neurons Today, they've expanded the data set dramatically, adding more than 700 neurons "This is the largest number set of such neurons to date," chandrashekar said Over time, the team simplified their neuron tracking process First, they injected the virus into the brains of mice to make a few neurons glow They then used optical microscopes to capture high-resolution images of illuminated neurons The computer program splices 20000 formed images together to form a three-dimensional map of the mouse brain "It's like putting 20000 Lego blocks together," chandrashekar said Algorithms and software developed in collaboration with the scientific computing group at the Jennifer Research Center at the Howard Hughes Institute of medicine can help scientists track the interwoven pathways of individual neurons Currently, tracking a single neuron takes about a day, but a few years ago, it took a week or two These preliminary data reveal new strands of how the mouse brain connects In some brain regions, neurons aggregate into discrete categories In other brain regions, neurons cannot be easily classified into specific types Chandrashekar said it's unclear what this means for the way information travels through the brain, but it's a goal of future research Still, much of the mouse brain, which contains about 70 million neurons, is an unknown wilderness Karel Svoboda of the Jennifer Research Center at the Hughes Institute of medicine in Howard estimates that even if you have a vague idea of the whole brain's connectivity system - the equivalent of a tourist map that marks important landmarks - you need to track about 100000 neurons So far, mouselight has focused on reconstructing neurons in some brain regions - motor cortex, subthalangeal foot, hypothalamus and thalamus - that scientists at the Jennifer Research Center at the Howard Hughes Institute of medicine are studying For example, Svoboda uses mouselight data to identify different motion control pathways in mice However, the project is still evolving The mouselight team shared their expanding datasets online Chandrashekar wants other scientists to join in their neuron tracking work (bio Com) reference: 1 Johan winnubst et al Reconstruction of 1000 project circuits reeals new cell types and organization of long range connectivity in the mouse brain Cell, 2019, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.07.042 2 Mouselight project maps 1, 000 neurons (and counting) in the mouse brain https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-mouselight-neurons-mouse-brain.html 3.300 neurons traced in extensive brain wiring map https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-10-neurons-extensive-brain-wiring.html