Artistic representation of more than 1000 cells from a brain map, each neuron with another color
Allen Institute
The largest and widest 3D map of a mammal brain So far, the neuron offers unspecified knowledge. The new map that captures a cubic millimeter of the visual cortex of the mouse will allow the brain function to learn extra details, the behavior of neural activities, which means complex characteristics that arise and being human being.
“Our behaviors arise from activity in the brain, and brain tissues share very similar properties in all mammals,” says teammates Forrest Collman Seattle at the Brain Science Allen Institute. “This is a reason to generalize the general views of the mouse cortex to humans.”
Achievement – something that is biologist Francisco cricket in 1979 said it was “impossible” – It took 150 researchers from three organizations that took seven years. The mouse was a part of a visual cortex began to record an activity of a neuronal activity, which was not greater than a grain of sand, as he saw movies and youtube clips.
Then a second team designed the same regional region, the width of a human hair in 1/400, and took pictures of each slice. Due to the tricky nature of the structure, the slice process cannot be stopped long, so the team took turns. “We have spent 12 days and 12 nights by classifying this hundred-millimeter cube in almost 30,000 layers,” says Group members Nuno da CostaAlso at Allen Institute.
From there, a third group was used A- Trace all cells and reconstruct each slice on the 3D map. “He asked for the hardest color of the world,” Collman says. “You have 100 million images in three dimensions and each cell must be colored with any other crayon. AI must stop where a cell starts and stop.”
This data was eventually combined with the functional activity recorded at the beginning of the project, so that the mouse is linked to the corresponding activity in the brain. The map obtained shows a huge brain complexity. Although it reduced its size, he had more than 200,000 cells between the two of them with 4-kilometers and 523 million synapses along with cells.
The data is already hypotheses on those who communicate neurons. Revealed, not only aimed at the surrounding cells, but also other cells dedicated to processing the same visual stimulus.
Researchers expect maps to resolve some gaps in knowledge between neural activities and behaviors, in the end to help undoing complex features like intelligence. “It is a land that will be invaluable to the scientific community,” he says Nathalie Rochefort From the University of Edinburgh, the United Kingdom.
Beyond instant applications, is that Costa can be able to test Awareness theories. “If someone has the theory of consciousness, they might be able to ask questions about these data, then they accept their theory or rejection.”
The work constructs another study published last year All neurons map Adult flies in the brain – The progress that flows already the field, Rochefort says. For example, helped scientists better understand the circadic rhythms that cause everything Lotik to metabolism.
This new map will be invaluable, allowing researchers to carry out comparisons between different species, cells, corded principles and functional properties that are conserving among single species or among some of them.
The project is published in several series Eight paper in nature magazines.
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