Latest news with #ClayReid
CBC
10-04-2025
- Science
- CBC
This isn't a galaxy — it's a map of a mouse's brain
Thanks to a mouse watching clips from The Matrix, scientists have created the largest functional map of a brain to date — a diagram of the wiring connecting 84,000 neurons as they fire off messages. Using a piece of that mouse's brain about the size of a poppyseed, the researchers identified those neurons and traced how they communicated via branch-like fibres through a surprising 500 million junctions called synapses. The massive dataset, published Wednesday by the journal Nature, marks a step toward unravelling the mystery of how our brains work. The data, assembled in a 3D reconstruction, coloured to delineate different brain circuitry, is open to scientists worldwide for additional research — and for the simply curious to take a peek. "It definitely inspires a sense of awe, just like looking at pictures of the galaxies," said Forrest Collman, of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, one of the project's leading researchers. "You get a sense of how complicated you are. We're looking at one tiny part … of a mouse's brain, and the beauty and complexity that you can see in these actual neurons and the hundreds of millions of connections between them." How we think, feel, see, talk and move are due to neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain: how they're activated and send messages to each other. Scientists have long known those signals move from one neuron along fibres called axons and dendrites, using synapses to jump to the next neuron. But there's less known about the networks of neurons that perform certain tasks and how disruptions of that wiring could play a role in Alzheimer's, autism or other disorders. "You can make a thousand hypotheses about how brain cells might do their job, but you can't test those hypotheses unless you know perhaps the most fundamental thing — how are those cells wired together," said Allen Institute scientist Clay Reid, who helped pioneer electron microscopy to study neural connections. Uncrossing the wires With the new project, a global team of more than 150 researchers mapped neural connections that Collman compares to tangled pieces of spaghetti winding through part of the mouse brain responsible for vision. The first step: Show a mouse video snippets of sci-fi movies, sports, animation and nature. A team at Baylor College of Medicine did just that, using a mouse engineered with a gene that makes its neurons glow when they're active. The researchers used a laser-powered microscope to record how individual cells in the animal's visual cortex lit up as they processed the images flashing by. WATCH | Allen Institute video reveals largest wiring diagram and functional map of the brain: Next, scientists at the Allen Institute analyzed that small piece of brain tissue, using a special tool to shave it into more than 25,000 layers, each far thinner than a human hair. With electron microscopes, they took nearly 100 million high-resolution images of those sections, illuminating those spaghetti-like fibres and painstakingly reassembling the data in 3D. Finally, Princeton University scientists used artificial intelligence to trace all that wiring and to "paint each of the individual wires a different colour so that we can identify them individually," Collman explained. They estimated that microscopic wiring, if laid out, would measure more than five kilometres. Importantly, matching up all that anatomy with the activity in the mouse's brain as it watched movies allowed researchers to trace how the circuitry worked. WATCH | MICrONS consortium video explores the connections of the brain: The Princeton researchers also created digital 3D copies of the data that other scientists can use in developing new studies. Could this kind of mapping help scientists eventually find treatments for brain diseases? The researchers call it a foundational step, like how the Human Genome Project that provided the first gene-mapping eventually led to gene-based treatments. Mapping a full mouse brain is one next goal. "The technologies developed by this project will give us our first chance to really identify some kind of abnormal pattern of connectivity that gives rise to a disorder," another of the project's leading researchers, Princeton neuroscientist and computer scientist Sebastian Seung, said in a statement. The work "marks a major leap forward and offers an invaluable community resource for future discoveries," wrote Harvard neuroscientists Mariela Petkova and Gregor Schuhknecht, who weren't involved in the project. The huge and publicly shared data "will help to unravel the complex neural networks underlying cognition and behaviour," they added. The Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks, or MICrONS, consortium was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's BRAIN Initiative and IARPA, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.
Arab Times
10-04-2025
- Science
- Arab Times
Experts map a mouse brain that looks like a galaxy
WASHINGTON, April 10, (AP): Thanks to a mouse watching clips from "The Matrix,' scientists have created the largest functional map of a brain to date - a diagram of the wiring connecting 84,000 neurons as they fire off messages. Using a piece of that mouse's brain about the size of a poppy seed, the researchers identified those neurons and traced how they communicated via branch-like fibers through a surprising 500 million junctions called synapses. The massive dataset, published Wednesday by the journal Nature, marks a step toward unraveling the mystery of how our brains work. The data, assembled in a 3D reconstruction colored to delineate different brain circuitry, is open to scientists worldwide for additional research - and for the simply curious to take a peek. "It definitely inspires a sense of awe, just like looking at pictures of the galaxies,' said Forrest Collman of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, one of the project's leading researchers. "You get a sense of how complicated you are. We're looking at one tiny part ... of a mouse's brain and the beauty and complexity that you can see in these actual neurons and the hundreds of millions of connections between them.' How we think, feel, see, talk, and move are due to neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain - how they're activated and send messages to each other. Scientists have long known those signals move from one neuron along fibers called axons and dendrites, using synapses to jump to the next neuron. But there's less known about the networks of neurons that perform certain tasks and how disruptions of that wiring could play a role in Alzheimer's, autism or other disorders. "You can make a thousand hypotheses about how brain cells might do their job but you can't test those hypotheses unless you know perhaps the most fundamental thing - how are those cells wired together,' said Allen Institute scientist Clay Reid, who helped pioneer electron microscopy to study neural connections. With the new project, a global team of more than 150 researchers mapped neural connections that Collman compares to tangled pieces of spaghetti winding through part of the mouse brain responsible for vision. The first step: Show a mouse video snippets of sci-fi movies, sports, animation and nature. A team at Baylor College of Medicine did just that, using a mouse engineered with a gene that makes its neurons glow when they're active. The researchers used a laser-powered microscope to record how individual cells in the animal's visual cortex lit up as they processed the images flashing by. Next, scientists at the Allen Institute analyzed that small piece of brain tissue, using a special tool to shave it into more than 25,000 layers, each far thinner than a human hair. With electron microscopes, they took nearly 100 million high-resolution images of those sections, illuminating those spaghetti-like fibers and painstakingly reassembling the data in 3D. Finally, Princeton University scientists used artificial intelligence to trace all that wiring and "paint each of the individual wires a different color so that we can identify them individually,' Collman explained. They estimated that microscopic wiring, if laid out, would measure more than 3 miles (5 kilometers). Importantly, matching up all that anatomy with the activity in the mouse's brain as it watched movies allowed researchers to trace how the circuitry worked. The Princeton researchers also created digital 3D copies of the data that other scientists can use in developing new studies. Could this kind of mapping help scientists eventually find treatments for brain diseases? The researchers call it a foundational step, like how the Human Genome Project that provided the first gene mapping eventually led to gene-based treatments. Mapping a full mouse brain is one next goal. "The technologies developed by this project will give us our first chance to really identify some kind of abnormal pattern of connectivity that gives rise to a disorder,' another of the project's leading researchers, Princeton neuroscientist and computer scientist Sebastian Seung, said in a statement.
The Independent
10-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
A mouse watching The Matrix changed what we know about our brains
Scientists have constructed the most extensive functional brain map to date, charting the connections of 84,000 neurons as they transmit signals, thanks to a mouse that was shown clips from "The Matrix". Researchers examined a fragment of the mouse's brain, approximately the size of a poppy seed, pinpointing neurons and tracing their communication pathways through branch-like fibres across 500 million junctions known as synapses. The comprehensive dataset, which was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, represents progress towards understanding the complexities of brain function. The data is presented in a 3D reconstruction with colour-coded brain circuitry and is accessible to scientists globally for further investigation, as well as for those with a general interest. 'It definitely inspires a sense of awe, just like looking at pictures of the galaxies,' said Forrest Collman of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, one of the project's leading researchers. 'You get a sense of how complicated you are. We're looking at one tiny part ... of a mouse's brain and the beauty and complexity that you can see in these actual neurons and the hundreds of millions of connections between them.' How we think, feel, see, talk and move are due to neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain – how they're activated and send messages to each other. Scientists have long known those signals move from one neuron along fibers called axons and dendrites, using synapses to jump to the next neuron. But there's less known about the networks of neurons that perform certain tasks and how disruptions of that wiring could play a role in Alzheimer's, autism or other disorders. 'You can make a thousand hypotheses about how brain cells might do their job but you can't test those hypotheses unless you know perhaps the most fundamental thing – how are those cells wired together,' said Allen Institute scientist Clay Reid, who helped pioneer electron microscopy to study neural connections. With the new project, a global team of more than 150 researchers mapped neural connections that Collman compares to tangled pieces of spaghetti winding through part of the mouse brain responsible for vision. The first step: Show a mouse video snippets of sci-fi movies, sports, animation and nature. A team at Baylor College of Medicine did just that, using a mouse engineered with a gene that makes its neurons glow when they're active. The researchers used a laser-powered microscope to record how individual cells in the animal's visual cortex lit up as they processed the images flashing by. Next, scientists at the Allen Institute analyzed that small piece of brain tissue, using a special tool to shave it into more than 25,000 layers, each far thinner than a human hair. With electron microscopes, they took nearly 100 million high-resolution images of those sections, illuminating those spaghetti-like fibers and painstakingly reassembling the data in 3D. Finally, Princeton University scientists used artificial intelligence to trace all that wiring and 'paint each of the individual wires a different color so that we can identify them individually,' Collman explained. They estimated that microscopic wiring, if laid out, would measure more than 3 miles (5 kilometers). Importantly, matching up all that anatomy with the activity in the mouse's brain as it watched movies allowed researchers to trace how the circuitry worked. The Princeton researchers also created digital 3D copies of the data that other scientists can use in developing new studies. Could this kind of mapping help scientists eventually find treatments for brain diseases? The researchers call it a foundational step, like how the Human Genome Project that provided the first gene mapping eventually led to gene-based treatments. Mapping a full mouse brain is one next goal. 'The technologies developed by this project will give us our first chance to really identify some kind of abnormal pattern of connectivity that gives rise to a disorder,' another of the project's leading researchers, Princeton neuroscientist and computer scientist Sebastian Seung, said in a statement. The work 'marks a major leap forwards and offers an invaluable community resource for future discoveries,' wrote Harvard neuroscientists Mariela Petkova and Gregor Schuhknecht, who weren't involved in the project. The huge and publicly shared data 'will help to unravel the complex neural networks underlying cognition and behavior,' they added. The Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks, or MICrONS, consortium was funded by the National Institutes of Health's BRAIN Initiative and IARPA, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. —- The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
US scientists create most comprehensive circuit diagram of mammalian brain
The most comprehensive circuit diagram of neurons in a mammalian brain has been created by scientists, providing groundbreaking insights into the mystery of how the brain works. The map is of a speck of a mouse's visual cortex, smaller than a grain of sand, and traces the structure of 84,000 neurons linked by half a billion synapses and approximately 5.4km of neuronal wiring. The 3D reconstruction of the cubic millimetre of brain is helping uncover how the brain is organised and how different cell types work together, and could have implications for the understanding of intelligence, consciousness and neuronal conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism and schizophrenia. The advances are 'a watershed moment for neuroscience, comparable to the Human Genome Project in their transformative potential', according to Dr David Markowitz, former programme manager of the US governmental organisation Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), who coordinated the work. The MICrONS project sought not only to map the structure of neurons, but also investigated the electrical signalling between then, showing how they communicate and providing a better picture of the hidden conversations in the brain. Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas began by using specialised microscopes to record the brain activity from the target region as the animal watched various movies and YouTube clips. Afterwards, Allen Institute researchers took that same cubic millimetre of the brain and sliced it into more than 25,000 layers, each 1/400th the width of a human hair, and used an array of electron microscopes to take high-resolution pictures of each slice. Finally, another team at Princeton University used artificial intelligence and machine learning to reconstruct the cells and connections into a 3D volume. Combined, the massive data set is 1.6 petabytes in size, equivalent to 22 years of non-stop HD video. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'Inside that tiny speck is an entire architecture like an exquisite forest,' said Dr Clay Reid, senior investigator and a neurobiologist at the Allen Institute. 'It has all sorts of rules of connections that we knew from various parts of neuroscience, and within the reconstruction itself, we can test the old theories and hope to find new things that no one has ever seen before.' The findings reveal new cell types and a new principle of inhibition within the brain. Scientists previously thought of inhibitory cells – those that suppress neural activity – as a simple force that dampens the action of other cells. But the latest work found that inhibitory cells are highly selective about which cells they target, creating a network-wide system of coordination and cooperation. Understanding the brain's form and function could pave the way for a better understanding of brain disorders involving disruptions in neural communication. 'If you have a broken radio and you have the circuit diagram, you'll be in a better position to fix it.' said Dr Nuno da Costa, associate investigator at the Allen Institute. 'We are describing a kind of Google map or blueprint of this grain of sand. In the future, we can use this to compare the brain wiring in a healthy mouse to the brain wiring in a model of disease.' The findings are published in a series of papers in the journal Nature.
The Independent
09-04-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Scientists map part of a mouse's brain that's so complex it looks like a galaxy
Thanks to a mouse watching clips from 'The Matrix,' scientists have created the largest functional map of a brain to date – a diagram of the wiring connecting 84,000 neurons as they fire off messages. Using a piece of that mouse's brain about the size of a poppy seed, the researchers identified those neurons and traced how they communicated via branch-like fibers through a surprising 500 million junctions called synapses. The massive dataset, published Wednesday by the journal Nature, marks a step toward unraveling the mystery of how our brains work. The data, assembled in a 3D reconstruction colored to delineate different brain circuitry, is open to scientists worldwide for additional research – and for the simply curious to take a peek. 'It definitely inspires a sense of awe, just like looking at pictures of the galaxies,' said Forrest Collman of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, one of the project's leading researchers. 'You get a sense of how complicated you are. We're looking at one tiny part ... of a mouse's brain and the beauty and complexity that you can see in these actual neurons and the hundreds of millions of connections between them.' How we think, feel, see, talk and move are due to neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain – how they're activated and send messages to each other. Scientists have long known those signals move from one neuron along fibers called axons and dendrites, using synapses to jump to the next neuron. But there's less known about the networks of neurons that perform certain tasks and how disruptions of that wiring could play a role in Alzheimer's, autism or other disorders. 'You can make a thousand hypotheses about how brain cells might do their job but you can't test those hypotheses unless you know perhaps the most fundamental thing – how are those cells wired together,' said Allen Institute scientist Clay Reid, who helped pioneer electron microscopy to study neural connections. With the new project, a global team of more than 150 researchers mapped neural connections that Collman compares to tangled pieces of spaghetti winding through part of the mouse brain responsible for vision. The first step: Show a mouse video snippets of sci-fi movies, sports, animation and nature. A team at Baylor College of Medicine did just that, using a mouse engineered with a gene that makes its neurons glow when they're active. The researchers used a laser-powered microscope to record how individual cells in the animal's visual cortex lit up as they processed the images flashing by. Next, scientists at the Allen Institute analyzed that small piece of brain tissue, using a special tool to shave it into more than 25,000 layers, each far thinner than a human hair. With electron microscopes, they took nearly 100 million high-resolution images of those sections, illuminating those spaghetti-like fibers and painstakingly reassembling the data in 3D. Finally, Princeton University scientists used artificial intelligence to trace all that wiring and 'paint each of the individual wires a different color so that we can identify them individually,' Collman explained. They estimated that microscopic wiring, if laid out, would measure more than 3 miles (5 kilometers). Importantly, matching up all that anatomy with the activity in the mouse's brain as it watched movies allowed researchers to trace how the circuitry worked. The Princeton researchers also created digital 3D copies of the data that other scientists can use in developing new studies. Could this kind of mapping help scientists eventually find treatments for brain diseases? The researchers call it a foundational step, like how the Human Genome Project that provided the first gene mapping eventually led to gene-based treatments. Mapping a full mouse brain is one next goal. 'The technologies developed by this project will give us our first chance to really identify some kind of abnormal pattern of connectivity that gives rise to a disorder,' another of the project's leading researchers, Princeton neuroscientist and computer scientist Sebastian Seung, said in a statement. The work 'marks a major leap forwards and offers an invaluable community resource for future discoveries,' wrote Harvard neuroscientists Mariela Petkova and Gregor Schuhknecht, who weren't involved in the project. The huge and publicly shared data 'will help to unravel the complex neural networks underlying cognition and behavior,' they added. The Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks, or MICrONS, consortium was funded by the National Institutes of Health's BRAIN Initiative and IARPA, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. —- The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
