MouseLight Neuron AA1041

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. Researchers interested in the complete raw data set should contact Janelia to discuss obtaining it via hardware transfer.贾内利亚研究所（Janelia）的科学家团队开展了一项大规模神经示踪研究，将小鼠大脑中已完成全轨迹追踪的神经元数量提升了10倍。如今研究人员可下载并以三维形式浏览该数据集。研究人员此次发现，小鼠大脑内的单个神经元可在大脑半球间蜿蜒穿行，构建出繁复的分支结构，甚至能延伸出长达45厘米的纤细神经纤维。该研究构建了目前已公开的最精细小鼠大脑连接图谱，研究人员可通过三维视角观察并探索这些游走的神经轨迹。该图谱重建了小鼠大脑7000万个神经元中超过300个的形态与位置，而此前的同类神经元轨迹追踪研究仅能完成数十个神经元的追踪。研究人员通过双光子显微镜的迭代成像流程，完成了这些选择性标记神经元的图谱绘制：实验中将小鼠大脑切成200微米厚的切片，每次对数十个神经元进行标记并成像。每一块成像的大脑样本可产生约50太字节的数据，其中包含已完成映射的神经元，研究人员可通过NeuronBrowser应用程序浏览这些数据。若有研究人员需要完整的原始数据集，可联系贾内利亚研究所协商通过硬件传输的方式获取。