MouseLight Neuron AA0149

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. <br>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.<br>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. <br>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.

简利亚（Janelia）研究所的科研团队开展了大规模神经追踪研究，将小鼠大脑中已完成全追踪的神经元数量提升了一个数量级。研究人员如今可下载该数据集并进行三维浏览。
在小鼠大脑内，单个神经元会在左右脑半球间蜿蜒穿行，构建出繁复精巧的分支结构；研究团队此次还发现，神经元甚至可伸出最长达45厘米的纤细纤维。
科研人员可在这张迄今最精细的小鼠大脑连接组图谱中，以三维视角观察并探索这些蜿蜒分布的神经追踪结果。该图谱重构了小鼠大脑7000万个神经元中超过300个的形态与位置。此前的同类神经元追踪研究最多仅能完成数十个神经元的全路径追踪。
研究团队通过双光子显微镜（two-photon microscopy）的迭代成像流程完成了选择性标记神经元的图谱绘制：将小鼠大脑切割为200微米厚度的脑片，每次对数十个神经元进行标记并成像。每颗成像的小鼠大脑可产生约50太字节的数据，其中包含可通过神经元浏览器（NeuronBrowser）应用程序浏览的已追踪神经元数据。若研究人员希望获取完整的原始数据集，请联系简利亚协商通过硬件传输的方式获取。