In collaboration with Google’s machine learning experts, scientists from Harvard University have intricately mapped a wiring diagram of a minute section of the human brain. This incredibly complex and vital organ serves as the command center for the nervous system.
The effort unveiled new insights into the brain’s structure, with billions of neurons communicating via electrical and chemical signals.
This study focused on a minute cubic millimeter of brain tissue from a 45-year-old woman with epilepsy, a disorder causing sudden, brief changes in brain activity.
The 1.4-petabyte dataset challenged existing brain structure and function understandings
Despite its size, mapping the tissue’s neural circuitry, cellular connections, and vascular support was a monumental task. Using over 5,000 electron microscope images, researchers identified 57,000 cells, 23 centimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million neural connections.
Professor Jeff Lichtman from Harvard noted, “The aim was to get a high-resolution view of this most mysterious piece of biology that each of us carries around on our shoulders.”
Employing machine learning, the team traced cell pathways, a task that human efforts would have taken years to complete. The resulting 1.4-petabyte dataset challenged existing brain structure and function understandings.
“We found many things in this dataset that are not in the textbooks,” Lichtman stated.
One intriguing finding was the symmetry in the dendritic branching of pyramidal neurons, shedding light on brain signal transmission.
Despite the complexity, the team is collaborating with Google to map an entire mouse brain, aiming to understand neural circuits influencing behavior and decision-making.
“There are wonderful opportunities, if you have a whole mouse brain, to get insight into free will, even… You know, a mouse is not a robot,” Lichtman remarked.