MouseLight Neuron AA0160

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.

珍利亚（Janelia）研究团队开展的大规模神经示踪项目，将小鼠大脑中已完全示踪的神经元数量提升了一个数量级。如今研究人员可下载并三维浏览该数据集。
在小鼠大脑内，单个神经元会在大脑半球间蜿蜒穿行，绣出繁复的分支形态；研究团队此次更发现，神经元甚至可延伸出长达45厘米的纤细纤维。
科学家可在这张迄今最精细的小鼠大脑连接图谱中，以三维形式观察并探索这些蜿蜒的神经示踪结果。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，而此前的同类研究仅能完成数十个单个神经元的路径示踪。
此次研究通过迭代流程结合双光子显微镜（two-photon microscopy）对选择性标记的神经元进行成像绘制：将大脑切割为200微米厚的脑片，每次标记数十个神经元并完成成像。每一例被成像的大脑可产生约50太字节的数据，其中包含已完成绘制的神经元，可通过神经元浏览器（NeuronBrowser）进行浏览。若研究人员需要完整的原始数据集，请联系珍利亚（Janelia）协商通过硬件转移的方式获取。