MouseLight Neuron AL0004

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.

一支由Janelia科学家组成的庞大研究团队，通过神经追踪技术的努力，使得小鼠大脑中完全追踪到的神经元数量增加了十倍。研究者们现在可以下载并浏览这些数据，以三维形式呈现。在小鼠大脑内部，单个神经元穿梭于半球之间，编织出分支图案，而研究人员最近发现，这些神经元甚至可以延伸出长达45厘米的细长纤维。科学家们可以在迄今为止创建的最详细的小鼠大脑神经网络图谱中观察和探索这些游走于神经轨迹。该图谱重建了小鼠大脑中7000万神经元中超过300万个的形状和位置。先前追踪单个神经元路径的努力仅限于数十个。通过迭代过程和双光子显微镜，对选择性标记的神经元进行映射。大脑被切成200微米厚的切片，每次标记并成像数十个神经元。每张成像的大脑可以产生大约50太字节的数据，每份数据都包含映射的神经元，可通过NeuronBrowser应用程序进行浏览，访问地址为https://ml-neuronbrowser.janelia.org/。对完整原始数据集感兴趣的研究者应联系Janelia，讨论通过硬件传输获取数据的方式。