Scientists working with Google just published the most detailed brain scans ever created
Monday, January 27, 2020 IST
Google and its partners at the Janelia Research Campus today released the largest, most detailed set of brain scans ever published. The project encompasses nearly one-third of the brain of a fruit fly and includes detailed mappings for more than 25 thousand neurons featuring more than 20 million synapses. The best part: it’s all been released open-source to the public. This is a great day for science.
These aren’t the kind of brain scans you might be thinking of. The scientists didn’t strap flies into tiny MRIs and zap them, they sliced their brains into 20-micron thick layers and then pulsed each layer with electrons. The resulting data was then used to produce a 3D image comprised of trillions of 3D pixels.
The reason they chose fruit flies is because, compared to previous subjects, they’re incredibly complex but still posses a small enough brain to make the endeavor manageable. Unlike worms or other lower animals, fruit flies have built-in navigation systems and exhibit high-level behavior functions such as courtship dances. They’re a lot like us, just on a much smaller scale.
The neural circuits responsible for behavior remain largely unknown. Previous efforts have reconstructed the complete circuits of small animals, with hundreds of neurons, and selected circuits for larger animals. Here we (the FlyEM project at Janelia and collaborators at Google) summarize new methods and present the complete circuitry of a large fraction of the brain of a much more complex animal, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
Stitching together millions of 3D images is a monumental task. Even with the aid of Google‘s AI, the scientists still spent hundreds of thousands of hours over more than two years tracing synapses in virtual reality to verify the veracity of the project.
The big idea here is that these images aren’t just random neurons in the flies‘ brains. These specific groupings are called “connectomes” according to the field of “connectomics.” These maps hypothetically work like wiring diagrams for brains. In theory, with the right map, we could trace behavioral activity.
James Vincent at The Verge describes the idea of “connectomics” in an article published today:
Connectomics has a mixed reputation in the science world. Advocates argue that it helps link physical parts of the brain to specific behaviors, which is a key goal in neuroscience. But critics note it has yet to produce any major breakthroughs, and they say that the painstaking work of mapping neurons is a drain on resources that might be better put to use elsewhere.
Luckily for organizations and individuals who can’t afford the resources it would take to build this particular project, Google and the scientists at the Janelia Research Campus have published the entire project open-source. Even better, the team painstakingly formatted the data, images, videos, and other information in a way that makes it easily accessible to everyday people and usable by world-class researchers.
Learn more about the project and check out all the amazing images and videos at the “Hemibrain” website
here.
Related Topics
Related News & Articles
London: A huge fire tore through a 27-story apartment obstruct in west London in the early hours of Wednesday, police and fire administrations said.
The ...
Recently posted . 687 views . 9 min read
“Hum ladkon ke liye toh bas ek-do brands ke shampoo aur conditioner hote hain. Girls have such a variety of products.”
Recently posted . 619 views . 1 min read
It crashed into Earth in 1969, ending an epic journey that had lasted for billions of years, and maybe even much longer than that.
Recently posted . 636 views . 1 min read
Since rangeomorphs could not move and are preserved where they lived, it is possible to analyse whole populations from the fossil record.
Recently posted . 730 views . 1 min read
It's time you use your bhavishya predicting ability to the fullest!
Recently posted . 765 views . 0 min read
Trending News & Articles
ALMATY: Hour upon hour, day upon day, Omir Bekali and other detainees in far western China's new indoctrination camps had to disavow the...
Recently posted . 194K views . 1 min read
If you have payed attention to the belly buttons of people on the beach or the members of your family, you have probably noticed that they have different shapes and...
Recently posted . 8K views . 2 min read
In this age of terror, there might be nothing more terrifying than the thought of an attack carried out with chemical weapons. We’ve all heard the horrific ...
Recently posted . 3K views . 4 min read
Body fitness is one thing that everyone wants to maintain irrespective of age. Going to the gym and doing some great exercise always helps to maintain your body fit...
Recently posted . 3K views . 2 min read
More in Global
Imagine a time where humans have set foot on most of the planets in the galaxy, with even more to explore. This exoskeleton spacesuit coincides with that ultimate d...
Recently posted. 706 views . 1 min read
Seeta, who turned seven months old on Thursday, is one of the smallest babies to survive in India. Doctors at Jivanta Children’s Hospital call her a “mi...
Recently posted. 589 views . 1 min read
If you’re a traveler you’ll definitely admit that not all your traveling experiences have been beautiful. There might be a good number of cities that wo...
Recently posted. 1K views . 2 min read
Recently posted . 538 views
Recently posted . 866 views
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 1K views . 67 min read
Recently posted . 1K views . 99 min read
The model revealed that wind farms caused regional warming of near-surface air temperature
Recently posted. 593 views . 0 min read
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have banned batsman Sharjeel Khan from all cricketing exercises for a long time over the Pakistan Super League (PSL) spot-settling emba...
Recently posted. 678 views . 7 min read