The human brain is smaller than you might expect:One of them,dripping with formaldehyde,fits in a single gloved hand of a lab supervisor.Soon,this rubbery organ will be frozen solid,coated in glue,and then sliced into...The human brain is smaller than you might expect:One of them,dripping with formaldehyde,fits in a single gloved hand of a lab supervisor.Soon,this rubbery organ will be frozen solid,coated in glue,and then sliced into several thousand wispy slivers,each just 60 micrometers thick.A custom apparatus will scan those sections using 3D polarized light imaging(3DPLI)to measure the spatial orientation of nerve fibers at the micrometer level.The scans will be gathered into展开更多
The progressive degeneration of nigral dopaminergic（DA）neurons and the biochemical reduction of striatal dopamine levels are associated with major clinical symptoms,including tremor at rest,rigidity of the limbs,slo...The progressive degeneration of nigral dopaminergic（DA）neurons and the biochemical reduction of striatal dopamine levels are associated with major clinical symptoms,including tremor at rest,rigidity of the limbs,slowness and paucity of voluntary movement（bradykinesia）.展开更多
The BRAIN project recently announced by the president Obama is the reflection of unrelenting human quest for cracking the brain code, the patterns of neuronal activity that define who we are and what we are. While the...The BRAIN project recently announced by the president Obama is the reflection of unrelenting human quest for cracking the brain code, the patterns of neuronal activity that define who we are and what we are. While the Brain Activity Mapping proposal has rightly emphasized on the need to develop new technologies for measuring every spike from every neuron, it might be helpful to consider both the theoretical and experimental aspects that would accelerate our search for the organizing principles of the brain code. Here we share several insights and lessons from the similar proposal, namely, Brain Decoding Project that we initiated since 2007. We provide a specific example in our initial mapping of real-time memory traces from one part of the memory circuit, namely, the CA1 region of the mouse hippocampus. We show how innovative behavioral tasks and appropriate mathematical analyses of large datasets can play equally, if not more, important roles in uncovering the specific-to-general feature-coding cell assembly mechanism by which episodic memory, semantic knowledge, and imagination are generated and organized. Our own experiences suggest that the bottleneck of the Brain Project is not only at merely developing additional new technologies, but also the lack of efficient avenues to disseminate cutting edge platforms and decoding expertise to neuroscience community. Therefore, we propose that in order to harness unique insights and extensive knowledge from various investigators working in diverse neuroscience subfields, ranging from perception and emotion to memory and social behaviors, the BRAIN project should create a set of International and National Brain Decoding Centers at which cutting-edge recording technologies and expertise on analyzing large datasets analyses can be made readily available to the entire community of neuroscientists who can apply and schedule to perform cutting-edge research.展开更多
文摘The human brain is smaller than you might expect:One of them,dripping with formaldehyde,fits in a single gloved hand of a lab supervisor.Soon,this rubbery organ will be frozen solid,coated in glue,and then sliced into several thousand wispy slivers,each just 60 micrometers thick.A custom apparatus will scan those sections using 3D polarized light imaging(3DPLI)to measure the spatial orientation of nerve fibers at the micrometer level.The scans will be gathered into
基金supported by grants from the Korea Healthcare Technology R&D Project, Ministry of Health & Welfare (HI15C1928)the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017R1A2B4002675)
文摘The progressive degeneration of nigral dopaminergic（DA）neurons and the biochemical reduction of striatal dopamine levels are associated with major clinical symptoms,including tremor at rest,rigidity of the limbs,slowness and paucity of voluntary movement（bradykinesia）.
基金Georgia Research Alliance for funding the Brain Decoding Initiative (2007 present)Yunnan Province Department of Science and Technology for the support of our work
文摘The BRAIN project recently announced by the president Obama is the reflection of unrelenting human quest for cracking the brain code, the patterns of neuronal activity that define who we are and what we are. While the Brain Activity Mapping proposal has rightly emphasized on the need to develop new technologies for measuring every spike from every neuron, it might be helpful to consider both the theoretical and experimental aspects that would accelerate our search for the organizing principles of the brain code. Here we share several insights and lessons from the similar proposal, namely, Brain Decoding Project that we initiated since 2007. We provide a specific example in our initial mapping of real-time memory traces from one part of the memory circuit, namely, the CA1 region of the mouse hippocampus. We show how innovative behavioral tasks and appropriate mathematical analyses of large datasets can play equally, if not more, important roles in uncovering the specific-to-general feature-coding cell assembly mechanism by which episodic memory, semantic knowledge, and imagination are generated and organized. Our own experiences suggest that the bottleneck of the Brain Project is not only at merely developing additional new technologies, but also the lack of efficient avenues to disseminate cutting edge platforms and decoding expertise to neuroscience community. Therefore, we propose that in order to harness unique insights and extensive knowledge from various investigators working in diverse neuroscience subfields, ranging from perception and emotion to memory and social behaviors, the BRAIN project should create a set of International and National Brain Decoding Centers at which cutting-edge recording technologies and expertise on analyzing large datasets analyses can be made readily available to the entire community of neuroscientists who can apply and schedule to perform cutting-edge research.
