(Press-News.org) The human brain is a tangled highway of wires emanating from nearly 100 billion neurons, all of which communicate across trillions of junctions called synapses. “Depressingly complex,” Harvard neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman calls it. The only way to understand this highway, says Lichtman, is to create a map.
Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has spent several decades generating such maps, and in doing so has pioneered a field known as “connectomics.” His ultimate goal is a whole-mammalian brain map accounting for every neural connection, a so-called “connectome.”
Now, Lichtman and colleagues are embarking on a critical new step of that journey by seeking to capture synapse-level connectome data from a mouse brain at unprecedented clarity and resolution.
Lichtman and partners including Princeton University, MIT, Cambridge University and Johns Hopkins have received $30 million from the National Institutes of Health and an additional $3 million from Harvard and Princeton toward the goal of reconstructing, for the first time, all the neural wiring inside a mouse brain. They’ll prove the feat possible by first imaging a 10 cubic-millimeter region in the mouse hippocampal formation, the portion of the brain responsible for memory consolidation, spatial navigation, and other complex tasks.
Like the Human Genome Project cataloged every human gene and its unique DNA sequence, Lichtman’s connectome, which he has worked on since arriving at Harvard in 2004, would be a comprehensive diagram of every neural connection in the brain.
Creating a connectome of the human brain could lead to new approaches in diagnosing and treating disorders of the brain, from autism to schizophrenia. Scientists suspect these diseases are “connectopathies” — subtle miswirings that no currently available brain scans can detect.
“Connectomics is the only pathway,” said Lichtman, an affiliate of Harvard’s Center for Brain Science. “If we get to a point where doing a whole mouse brain becomes routine, you could think about doing it in say, animal models of autism. There is this level of understanding about brains that presently doesn’t exist. We know about the outward manifestations of behavior. We know about some of the molecules that are perturbed. But in between, the wiring diagrams, until now, there was no way to see them. Now, there is a way.”
The National Institutes of Health awarded new recipients of the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® Initiative, or BRAIN Initiative, funding in early September. The Harvard team is being funded through the BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales network, aimed at developing research capacity and technical capabilities for creating wiring diagrams of whole brains.
“Current techniques lack either the resolution or the ability to scale across and map out large regions of the entire brain, information that is essential for unraveling the mysteries of this incredible organ,” said John Ngai, director of the BRAIN Initiative. “Following years of careful planning and input from the scientific community, BRAIN CONNECTS — which represents our third, large-scale transformative project — aims to develop the tools needed to obtain brain-wide connectivity maps at unprecedented levels of detail and scale.”
The mouse brain is, of course, much smaller than a human’s, but when looking at individual neurons, synaptic vesicles and glial cells, “you can’t tell the difference,” Lichtman said. “At the level of cells and synapses, all mammalian brains are basically the same.”
Given recent advances in computing and data processing, and prior work by Lichtman and others — including Professor Florian Engert in molecular and cell biology — on the brains of zebrafish and fruit flies, achieving a mouse brain map has become more feasible and would serve as an early proving ground for imaging the human brain. Lichtman and colleagues urged collective efforts toward the lofty goal of a mouse brain connectome in a 2020 opinion piece titled “The Mind of a Mouse.”
The researchers will apply biological imaging techniques Lichtman and colleagues have invented over the course of several decades to achieve their goals. For the NIH project, they will employ a two-tiered system. First, two 91-beam scanning electron microscopes, one at Harvard and one at Princeton, will capture images of thin sections of the mouse hippocampal formation. The surface of each section will then be etched away with an ion beam just a few nanometers at a time, and the imaging process will be repeated until the entire volume is viewed. A team at Google Research will computationally extract the resulting wiring diagram with machine learning.
The team expects to generate about 10,000 terabytes of data for their 10-square-millimeter mouse brain section; 50 times that amount of data would be generated for a whole mouse brain. Over the first half of their five-year project, the team expects to generate up to 50 terabytes of data per day.
Lichtman’s team has worked with Google over the last several years on image processing techniques that allow them to make sense of large amounts of data quickly. Engineers led by grant co-investigator Viren Jain will apply artificial intelligence algorithms to these brain images to categorize and color-code nerve cells and synapses. Google will also help publicly share this enormous brain map.
“We plan on using our experience with computational reconstruction and analysis of large-scale electron microscopy data, along with Google’s highly scalable data processing infrastructure, in order to enable mouse connectomics at an unprecedented scale,” said Google’s Jain. “We have worked closely with Jeff’s lab over five years, and this collaboration has been highly successful in pushing the frontiers of data-intensive neuroscience.”
The research is supported by the NIH BRAIN Initiative under award number 1UM1NS132250-01. Lichtman is involved with another BRAIN CONNECTS grant awarded by the NIH, which is led by Professor of Physics Aravinthan D.T. Samuel and is aimed at developing a rapid-imaging strategy for connectomics. More information on other awardees.
END
Human brain seems impossible to map. What if we started with mice?
Project seeks to create first comprehensive diagram of every neural connection
2023-10-06
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study validates pyrvinium as treatment to prevent stomach cancer
2023-10-06
A study published Oct. 4 in Gastroenterology further validates that pyrvinium, a drug that has been used for decades for intestinal pinworms, can be repurposed as a preventative treatment for stomach cancer.
Eunyoung Choi, PhD, assistant professor of Surgery, and colleagues have demonstrated in human organoids and mouse models that the drug induces cell death in precancerous lesions. Pyrvinium blockades both the MEK/ERK and STAT3 signaling pathways. In another study she led, which was published last year in Gastroenterology, the researchers demonstrated that pyrvinium blocked regeneration of dysplastic ...
Researchers catch protons in the act of dissociation with SLAC’s ultrafast 'electron camera'
2023-10-06
Scientists have caught fast-moving hydrogen atoms – the keys to countless biological and chemical reactions – in action.
A team led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University used ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) to record the motion of hydrogen atoms within ammonia molecules. Others had theorized they could track hydrogen atoms with electron diffraction, but until now nobody had done the experiment successfully.
The results, published October 5 in Physical ...
Scientists investigate Grand Canyon's ancient past to predict future climate impacts
2023-10-06
The Grand Canyon’s valleys and millions of years of rock layers spanning Earth’s history have earned it a designation as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. But, according to a new UNLV and University of New Mexico study, its marvels extend to vast cave systems that lie beneath the surface, which just might hold clues to better understand the future of climate change — by studying nature’s past.
A research team led by UNLV paleoclimatologist and Professor Matthew Lachniet that included the University of New Mexico Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Distinguished Professor Yemane Asmerom and Research Scientist Victor Polyak and other ...
ESMO Congress 2023
2023-10-06
Lugano, Switzerland, 6 October 2023 – Under the promise to “Disseminating innovative research for optimal cancer care” as this year’s tagline reads, the ESMO Congress 2023 will be held in Madrid between 20-24 October 2023 with a virtual component to allow as many people as possible to attend.
From a keynote lecture pinpointing the hallmarks of cancer in the current year through the reinforced commitment towards more academic input in the drug development process for better cancer care, and then further down to the dramatic scenarios brought by the too many situations of crisis in the world which have an unbearable impact ...
ORNL, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley partner to provide students research, mentorship opportunities
2023-10-06
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, known as UTRGV, have signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen research cooperation and establish a collaborative program for undergraduate research and education, further cementing relationships and collaboration between the lab and minority-serving institutions. This partnership builds a pathway for students to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, careers through DOE by complementing ...
Lurbinectedin for Neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs)
2023-10-06
“Several ongoing trials hope to further elucidate the role of lurbinectedin in highgrade neuroendocrine neoplasms [...]”
BUFFALO, NY- October 6, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 10) on June 14, 2023, entitled, “Lurbinectedin, a DNA minor groove inhibitor for neuroendocrine neoplasms beyond small cell lung cancer.”
In their new editorial, researchers Deepak Bhamidipati and Vivek Subbiah from the Sarah Cannon Research Institute discuss lurbinectedin as a method to treat neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). NETs encompass a variety ...
Clinical trial reveals benefits of inhaled nitric oxide for patients with respiratory failure due to COVID-19 pneumonia
2023-10-06
Key Takeaways
Researchers have posted the results of a multisystem phase II clinical trial of patients with COVID-19 and respiratory failure
Patients who received inhaled nitric oxide had improved blood oxygen levels and fewer risks of long-term sensory and motor neurologic symptoms
They also experienced a faster reduction of viral load in sputum and blood
BOSTON – Inhaled nitric oxide gas widens blood vessels in the lungs and is used to treat severe cardio-pulmonary conditions in newborns and adults.
A recent multicenter international ...
nTIDE September 2023 Jobs Report: Employment trend holds steady at historic highs through early autumn for people with disabilities
2023-10-06
East Hanover, NJ – October 6, 2023 –The labor force participation and employment-to-population ratio have held relatively steady throughout the summer and into the fall for people with disabilities, while percentages for people without disabilities may have maxed out at their pre-pandemic baseline, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). In comparison, the employment-to-population ratio for people without disabilities remained flat with no change, while ...
Kidney disease gene also has a protective mutation
2023-10-06
African Americans have long been known to be at increased risk of kidney disease due to a dangerous genetic mutation that creates a hole in the kidney cells, but Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) researchers have now discovered a protective genetic mutation that covers the hole to eliminate the risk.
The findings on the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) gene, published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, could have immediate and broad implications for kidney health because people with both the disease-causing and protective mutation are not at increased risk.
“Our team discovered ...
Aston University offers talented Indian graduates opportunity to study for Masters degrees
2023-10-06
Aston University, UK, is offering a group of highly talented graduates of Symbiosis Institute of Technology (SIT), India the opportunity to study for a Masters degree.
The two institutions have signed a progression agreement which is designed to make it easier for top SIT graduates to apply for courses at Aston University.
The Aston-SIT partnership has been developed from the support of the British Council via its going global partnerships exploratory grant scheme. The areas of study cover a wide range of MSc programmes in engineering, physical sciences and business studies.
Aston University is in Birmingham, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Overthinking what you said? It’s your ‘lizard brain’ talking to newer, advanced parts of your brain
Black men — including transit workers — are targets for aggression on public transportation, study shows
Troubling spike in severe pregnancy-related complications for all ages in Illinois
Alcohol use identified by UTHealth Houston researchers as most common predictor of escalated cannabis vaping among youths in Texas
Need a landing pad for helicopter parenting? Frame tasks as learning
New MUSC Hollings Cancer Center research shows how Golgi stress affects T-cells' tumor-fighting ability
#16to365: New resources for year-round activism to end gender-based violence and strengthen bodily autonomy for all
Earliest fish-trapping facility in Central America discovered in Maya lowlands
São Paulo to host School on Disordered Systems
New insights into sleep uncover key mechanisms related to cognitive function
USC announces strategic collaboration with Autobahn Labs to accelerate drug discovery
Detroit health professionals urge the community to act and address the dangers of antimicrobial resistance
3D-printing advance mitigates three defects simultaneously for failure-free metal parts
Ancient hot water on Mars points to habitable past: Curtin study
In Patagonia, more snow could protect glaciers from melt — but only if we curb greenhouse gas emissions soon
Simplicity is key to understanding and achieving goals
Caste differentiation in ants
Nutrition that aligns with guidelines during pregnancy may be associated with better infant growth outcomes, NIH study finds
New technology points to unexpected uses for snoRNA
Racial and ethnic variation in survival in early-onset colorectal cancer
Disparities by race and urbanicity in online health care facility reviews
Exploring factors affecting workers' acquisition of exercise habits using machine learning approaches
Nano-patterned copper oxide sensor for ultra-low hydrogen detection
Maintaining bridge safer; Digital sensing-based monitoring system
A novel approach for the composition design of high-entropy fluorite oxides with low thermal conductivity
A groundbreaking new approach to treating chronic abdominal pain
ECOG-ACRIN appoints seven researchers to scientific committee leadership positions
New model of neuronal circuit provides insight on eye movement
Cooking up a breakthrough: Penn engineers refine lipid nanoparticles for better mRNA therapies
CD Laboratory at Graz University of Technology researches new semiconductor materials
[Press-News.org] Human brain seems impossible to map. What if we started with mice?Project seeks to create first comprehensive diagram of every neural connection