MouseLight Neuron AA1625

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.

由Janelia科学家团队发起的一项庞大的神经追踪工程，将小鼠大脑中完全追踪的神经元数量提升了十倍。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，单个神经元在半球间蜿蜒曲折，编织出分支图案，研究人员现已发现，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连接图谱中，观察并探索这些游走状的神经轨迹。该图谱重建了小鼠大脑中7000万个神经元中超过300万个的形状和位置。以往追踪单个神经元路径的努力最多只能追踪到几十个。这些选择性标记的神经元通过迭代过程结合双光子显微镜进行测绘。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仅有几十个。每一张大脑图像产生的数据量约为50太字节，其中包含的测绘神经元可通过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者应联系Janelia，以探讨通过硬件传输获取该数据集的可能性。