MouseLight Neuron AL0012

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科研团队进行的庞大神经网络追踪工程，将小鼠脑部完全追踪的神经元数量提升了十倍。研究人员现可下载并三维浏览这些数据。在小鼠脑部内部，单个神经元穿梭于半球之间，编织出错综复杂的分支图案，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。科学家们得以在迄今为止构建的最详细的小鼠脑部神经网络图谱中观察并探索这些游走的神经网络轨迹。该图谱重建了小鼠脑部7000万个神经元中超过300万个的形状和位置。之前追踪单个神经元路径的努力最多仅限于数十个。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。大脑被切割成200微米的薄片，每次标记并成像数十个神经元。每个成像的大脑产生约50太字节的数据，每份数据包含可由NeuronBrowser应用程序浏览的标记神经元，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，讨论通过硬件转移获取数据的方式。