The mapping is expected to open the way to new knowledge about its function and diseases
The largest 3D reconstruction of a human part to date brain which shows in great detail each cell and plexus of neuronal connections, researchers from the University of Harvard and her Google Research. Their achievement is described in a publication in the journalScience».
This particular reconstruction concerns one cubic millimeter of brain tissue from the temporal cortex, which nevertheless contains about 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels and almost 150 million synapses. The sample was obtained from a patient with epilepsy who underwent surgery.
Using the data, the authors discovered previously underestimated aspects of the temporal cortex, including large numbers of glial cells above neurons, but also a rare but robust set of axons connected by up to 50 synapses.
The mapping is expected to open the way to new insights into brain function and diseases about which scientists still know very little.
The reconstruction resulted from a nearly decade-long collaboration at Harvard University, led by Jeff Lichtman, professor of molecular and cellular biology and newly appointed dean of science, with Google Research scientists.
The ultimate goal of the collaboration, supported by the US National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative, is to create a high-resolution map of the neurons in a mouse’s brain, which would require an estimated 1,000 times the amount of data the one they just extracted from the section of human cortex.
