MouseLight Neuron AL0001

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 科学家组成的庞大团队在神经追踪领域取得了突破性进展，将小鼠大脑中完全追踪的神经元数量提高了十倍。研究者们现在可以下载并三维浏览这些数据。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，研究者们最新发现，这些神经元甚至可以延伸出长达 45 厘米的细长纤维。科学家们能够在迄今为止制作的最为详尽的小鼠大脑神经网络图谱中观察到并探索这些游走的神经轨迹。该图谱重建了小鼠大脑中 7000 万个神经元中的超过 300 个的形状和位置。以往追踪单个神经元路径的努力最多只能追踪到数十个。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了映射。大脑被切割成 200 微米的薄片，每次标记并成像的神经元数量为数十个。每一张成像的大脑产生大约 50 太字节的数据，其中包含的映射神经元可以通过 NeuronBrowser 应用程序进行浏览，访问链接为 https://ml-neuronbrowser.janelia.org/。对完整原始数据集感兴趣的研究者应与 Janelia 联系，讨论通过硬件传输获取数据的方式。