MouseLight Neuron AA0057

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. <br>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.<br>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. <br>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. 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。研究人员现在可以下载并以三维方式浏览这些数据。<br>在小鼠大脑内部，单个神经元跨半球呈之字形延伸，编织出复杂的分支模式；研究人员还发现，这些神经元甚至能伸出长达45厘米的细长纤维。<br>科学家们可以在这张迄今为止最详细的小鼠大脑神经连接图谱中，以三维方式查看和探索这些漫游的神经轨迹。该图谱重建了小鼠大脑7000万个神经元中300多个的形态和位置。此前对单个神经元路径的追踪工作，最多仅完成了几十个。<br>这些选择性标记的神经元通过双光子显微镜(two-photon microscopy)，在迭代过程中完成图谱绘制。大脑被切成200微米的切片，每次标记并成像几十个神经元。每个成像的大脑产生约50TB的数据，其中包含已绘制的神经元，可通过NeuronBrowser应用程序浏览。对完整原始数据集感兴趣的研究人员，应联系Janelia讨论通过硬件传输获取数据的事宜。