Release date: 2016-08-29
Editor's Note: At the end of July this year , Nature published the most detailed human brain map ever, but this is only a “partitioning†of the brain, which is far from the accuracy of the “cell levelâ€.
More secrets of the human brain may still be hidden in the approximately 85 billion neuronal cells and about 15 trillion connections between them. In the August 16 issue of Neuron, a new technology called MAP-seq was released, which uses RNA "barcodes" to record high-cost, low-cost connections between brain cells.
With the help of this technology, scientists will be able to unlock the mystery of the connection of human brain neurons. This not only allows us to further understand the human body itself, but also has a great guiding role in the current popular neural network architecture, which may allow the performance of deep neural networks to be improved in the short term.
The human brain is one of the most unknown areas of the universe. Just as every piece of mysterious land is explored, a good quality map is often crucial.
In this regard, the brain's explorer, the neuroscientists, has taken a big step. Their ultimate goal is to label each nerve cell in the brain with very little genetic material and then map the how these nerve cells connect to each other. Known as MAP-seq, this technology will help researchers study diseases such as autism and schizophrenia with unprecedented levels of detail.
Anthony Zador is a neuroscientist at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the inventor of the technology. He said: "We have mastered the theoretical basis of this new technology, and it will have many different applications."
“I think there is a lot of room for this technology,†said Je Hyuk Lee, a molecular biologist who was not involved in the study at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
However, Anthony's technology is not unprecedented, and efforts to map brain's connectome have been around for a long time. At present, scientists generally rely on fluorescent proteins and microscopes to image nerve cells, but this technique is very laborious and difficult to track the connection of multiple nerve cells at the same time.
Anthony Zade, a neuroscientist who developed a new method for brain mapping.
As a new technology that may bring innovation in the industry, the first step in MAP-seq is to create a library of random RNA sequences based on viruses.
These RNA sequence mixtures are then injected into the brain in an amount approximately one RNA sequence per nerve cell at the injection site. In this way, each nerve cell has its own unique RNA "barcode".
Then, the nerve cells that are labeled with the brain will be further sliced, diced, and arranged in order, waiting for processing.
After the DNA sequencing machine reads these RNA barcodes, the researchers can create a matrix that shows how individual neurons are connected to the rest of the brain.
The study was published last Thursday in the journal Neuron. It depicts a spread of neuronal connections in the locus coeruleus, including the nerve cells of 1,000 mice. This picture demonstrates the feasibility of Zed's MAP-seq technology. In this regard, Zade said that the connection of these nerve cells has been controversial, and their results actually solved the contradictory research findings.
Justus Kebschull and Zade have developed MAP-seq, which he says is getting better. "We can now draw a map of 100,000 nerve cells at the same time, which can be done in one week and one experiment. This was completely unbelievable in the past, unless you put a lot of work into it."
In fact, there are probably hundreds of genetic mutations in every ordinary person that cause subtle changes in the way neural networks are connected during brain development. To find out if these subtle changes caused functional disorders in the brain, and further autism and schizophrenia, scientists experimented with mice.
"We are exploring the mouse model to find out where the connection is broken. Now that the technology is so efficient, we can simultaneously study the effects of multiple gene mutations," said Kebshur. The mice with different candidate autism genes may have different brain circuits. By comparing these brain circuits, the researchers hope to have a new understanding of the relationship between brain connections and neurological diseases.
Although other teams have used similar coding techniques to study individual differences between cells, Zhad said that his lab is currently the only research team that marks barcodes on the brain, but he hopes others can start using MAP-seq records. Various brain circuits. He said: "Because the cost of sequencing continues to decrease, we will be able to conduct this research at a high speed and low price."
Perhaps soon, the complete map of the first brain will be available to its first explorer.
Undoubtedly, once the secrets of the connection between brain neurons are solved, in addition to helping to make breakthroughs in the treatment of certain neurological diseases, it will also provide a great guiding role for the framework of deep neural networks widely used in artificial intelligence. , thereby vigorously promoting the development of artificial intelligence.
Source: DeepTech Deep Technology
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