MouseLight Neuron AA1436

A vast neural tracing effort by a team of Janelia scientists has upped the number of fully-traced neurons in the mouse brain by a factor of 10. Researchers can now download and browse the data in three dimensions. Inside the mouse brain, individual neurons zigzag across hemispheres, embroider branching patterns and, researchers have now discovered, can even spool out spindly fibers up to 45 centimeters long. Scientists can see and explore these wandering neural traces in 3-D in the most detailed map of mouse brain wiring yet created. The map reconstructs the shape and position of more than 300 of the 70 million neurons in the mouse brain. Previous efforts to trace the path of individual neurons had topped out in the dozens. The selectively-labeled neurons were mapped in an iterative process with two-photon microscopy. The brain is sliced in 200-micron sections and a few dozen neurons are labeled at a time and imaged. Each brain imaged yields about 50 terabytes of data, each containing mapped neurons which can be browsed via the NeuronBrowser application at https://ml-neuronbrowser.janelia.org/. Researchers interested in the complete raw data set should contact Janelia to discuss obtaining it via hardware transfer.

Janelia团队开展的大规模神经追踪（neural tracing）工作，将小鼠大脑中完全追踪的神经元数量提升了10倍。研究人员如今可下载并以三维方式浏览这些数据。在小鼠大脑内部，单个神经元跨半球曲折延伸，织就刺绣般的分支图案——研究人员新近发现，它们甚至能伸出长达45厘米的纤细纤维。科学家可在迄今最详尽的小鼠大脑连接组（brain wiring）图谱中，以三维形式查看并探索这些游走的神经轨迹。该图谱重构了小鼠大脑7000万个神经元中300余个的形态与位置，而此前追踪单个神经元路径的尝试最多仅完成数十例。这些选择性标记的神经元通过双光子显微镜（two-photon microscopy）的迭代过程完成图谱绘制。每只成像大脑产生约50太字节（terabytes）的数据，其中包含已绘制的神经元，可通过NeuronBrowser应用程序（网址：https://ml-neuronbrowser.janelia.org/）浏览。对完整原始数据集感兴趣的研究人员，应联系Janelia以商讨通过硬件传输获取数据的相关事宜。