3-D model of the human brain: Assembled from magnetic resonance imaging data, this rendering shows the major structures of the organ: the frontal lobe (yellow), temporal lobe (pink), parietal lobe (red) and cerebellum (blue)...
Comparison: By using the Brain Explorer program with the Human Brain Atlas database, researchers can compare where a particular gene is used in two or more brains. Here, colored patches highlight regions in two human brains where protein was being made from the gene MET , which is suspected of playing a role in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder...
Cross-section: A mouse brain was cut through the center, top to bottom and stained to highlight the cell bodies of neurons (red) as well as their long axons (green), which neurons use to transmit signals to one another...
Wiring: Individual axons (hairlike wisps) can be seen fluorescing in this photomicrograph of a small piece of mouse brain. These axons connect neurons in the cortex that handle bodily movement to those in the thalamus that integrate sensory information...
Advertisement
One region: Both the axons and the main cell bodies of neurons glow green in this photomicrograph of the mouse brain’s substantia nigra, which is involved in addictive behavior. As in the previous image the cell outlines are revealed by infecting them with a chemically tagged virus...
Trunk lines: Nerve fibers in the human brain are arranged into bundles that can be tracked using a technique known as diffusion tensor imaging, which follows the path of water as it moves through brain tissue...
Neuroscientists have been mapping the physical anatomy of the human brain for over a century, but until recently researchers lacked a clear and comprehensive picture of which genes are used frequently and which are largely dormant in the myriad parts of this complex organ.
In 2012 a team at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle published the Allen Human Brain Atlas, which includes data on the activity of almost every gene at hundreds of locations inside the brains of five men and one woman. For comparison, the team had earlier produced an atlas of the mouse brain. The databases for these atlases, along with a viewer application called Brain Explorer, are freely available online.
This slide show presents some of the images developed by the Allen Institute in its studies of how the brain works in humans and mice. For more information on the Institute’s work, see “Genetic Maps of the Brain Lead to Surprises,” by Ed Lein and Mike Hawrylycz.
This article was originally published with the title "New Views of the Brain [Slide Show]" in Scientific American 310, 4, (April 2014)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
W. Wayt Gibbs is a contributing editor for Scientific American based
in Seattle. He also works as a scientific editor at Intellectual Ventures. Credit: Nick Higgins
