The process of extracting a brain atlas at the cellular level has hitherto been limited to much smaller animals or smaller parts of the human brain due to the enormous time and technical complexity required to map the entire human brain. However, with a new study, the situation may change.
Researchers at Columbia University and the Icahn School of Medicine announced that they will be collaborating on a project to create a detailed map of the entire human brain, including 180 billion cells and counting. With the data to be obtained at the end of the study, it was reported that it would be possible to comprehend how brain structure and organization lead to behavior, emotion and cognition in sickness and health.
The brain will be mapped just like Google Earth
Herbert and Florence Irving at Columbia Zuckerman Institute stated that new tools are behind the most striking advances throughout the history of science. Professor and project leader Elizabeth Hillman, PhD, said in a statement about the project, “We are developing technologies that will enable high-speed, large-scale imaging of tens or even hundreds of human brains over the next five years. The unprecedented treasures of data we hope to generate are the previously inaccessible information about the human brain. should pave the way.”
To get Dr. Hillman and his collaborators to undertake this ambitious project, the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative reportedly awarded a $9.1 million grant recently, which was funded by Columbia University.
“If successful, our microscope should be able to image the entire human brain in cellular details within a few days,” said Dr. Hillman, who said, “This data will be Google for the brain. It will be Earth-like and will enable the analysis of patterns and distributions of different human brain cells at very different length scales. “It records. However, Hillman draws attention to the fact that there are differences as well as similarities between his projects and Google Earth, stating that the number of cells in the brain is more than 180 billion, compared to eight billion people in the world.
If the team is successful, it will only take a few days to map the entire brain
The team isn’t just concerned with counting cells in the brain, however. Accordingly, it is stated that the team’s top priority is to develop a brain map that shows the diversity of the many different cell types that make up the brain. “We know that the brain contains billions of neurons, but there are many different neuron subtypes,” Hillman said. “How many they are, how they are organized, and how they vary between different brain regions and different people is largely unknown.” your words add.
The brain, on the other hand, is not just made up of neurons. The brain network includes other types of cells, including a number of glial cells and the cells that make up the vasculature of the brain. It is speculated that these cell types, each essential for normal brain function, may also contain important clues as to what goes wrong with the disease.
On this topic, Hillman said, “To make these datasets really useful, we have to find a way to capture as much information as possible while scanning the whole brain.” uses expressions. Hillman also points out that if successful, their microscope could image the entire human brain in cellular detail in just a few days.
For this brain atlas extraction project, Hillman is developing a new microscope technique. Calling it the Human Brain Optimized Light Plate (HOLiS) microscope, the team notes that they chose this name to highlight the importance of holistic imaging and analysis of the human brain.
So how does the brain mapping process work?
The first step in the imaging process involves carefully cutting the brain into 5 millimeter-thick sections and processing them to make them completely transparent. In order to achieve this feat, which is the specialty of Zhuhao Wu, assistant principal investigator on the project and assistant professor in Mount Sinai’s Laboratory of Nervous Systems, Structures and Genetics, Dr. Wu’s; It is said to have optimized a method for cleaning the human brain. This method involves a step that can mark each brain part with a series of fluorescent labels that make it possible to identify individual cells and their various characteristics based on their distinctive color.
Then, the HOLIS microscope that we mentioned above comes into play. HOLiS works at lightning speed to create huge, technical color 3D images of every part of the brain; The technique works by projecting laser light onto the tissue to create a layer of light that illuminates a very thin inclined plane. Meanwhile, a fast camera in the microscope captures an image of the same plane, and by moving the brain section at a constant speed, sequential images of each plane are combined to form a long 3D block. Afterwards, the tissue is scanned again before proceeding to the next stage.
The human brain will be analyzed more widely than ever before
Hillman underlined that it will take many years to try to image the entire human brain with current conventional tools. “We hope our HOLiS system will be able to image an entire brain in about a week.” saves as. Stating that thanks to this kind of speed, the entire brain imaging event will evolve from a one-time proof of concept to a technology that can image hundreds of brains, Hillman said, “We suspect that each brain will be very different, so we will be able to understand brain diversity throughout life and ultimately discover a wide variety of diseases and disorders. We need to be able to image a lot of brains.” he says.
However, at this point, the team has an obstacle. The team expects each brain atlas to generate two petabytes of data, which is a huge amount. To provide a solution to this problem, it is stated that the collaborators at the Pittsburgh Super Computing Center at Carnegie Mellon will help the team turn these data floods into user-friendly databases that can be more manageable, searchable and analyzed and compared.
Finally, if the process is put in order, a basic database can be created that allows the human brain to be analyzed more widely than ever before. and should accelerate our efforts to understand what goes wrong with psychiatric disorders.”
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