MouseLight Neuron AA1608

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 科学家组成的庞大神经追踪团队，将小鼠大脑中完全追踪的神经元数量提高了十倍。研究人员现在可以下载并三维浏览这些数据。在小鼠大脑内部，单个神经元在半球间蜿蜒曲折，编织出分支图案，而研究人员近日发现，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详细的小鼠大脑神经网络图中，看到并探索这些游走式的神经轨迹。该图重建了小鼠大脑中 7000 万神经元中超过 300 个的形状和位置。以往追踪单个神经元路径的努力仅限于数十个。这些选择性标记的神经元通过双光子显微镜的迭代过程进行绘制。大脑被切成 200 微米的薄片，每次标记并成像几十个神经元。每张成像的大脑产生约 50 太字节的数据，其中包含的绘制神经元可以通过 NeuronBrowser 应用程序进行浏览，该应用程序的网址为 https://ml-neuronbrowser.janelia.org/。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方式。