MouseLight Neuron AA1012

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.

由珍利亚（Janelia）科研团队主导的大规模神经示踪研究，将小鼠大脑中已完成全示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。
在小鼠大脑内部，单个神经元会在大脑半球间蜿蜒穿梭，织就精美繁复的分支形态；研究人员此次还发现，这类神经元甚至可延伸出长达45厘米的纤细纤维。
科研人员可借助这张迄今最精细的小鼠大脑连接图谱，以三维视角观察并探索这些蜿蜒的神经示踪结构。该图谱重构了小鼠大脑7000万神经元中逾300个的形态与空间位置。此前的单个神经元路径示踪研究，最高仅能完成数十个神经元的示踪工作。
本次研究通过结合双光子显微镜的迭代成像流程，对经选择性标记的神经元进行绘制。具体操作中，研究人员将大脑切割为200微米的切片，每次仅对数十个神经元进行标记并成像。每一份完成成像的大脑样本可产生约50太字节的数据，其中包含可通过神经元浏览器（NeuronBrowser）浏览的已绘制神经元结构。若研究人员需要完整的原始数据集，可联系珍利亚洽谈通过硬件传输方式获取相关数据的具体事宜。