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This story is from the category The Brain
Date posted: 01/04/2009 Mapping the billions of connections in the brain is a grand challenge in neuroscience. The current method for mapping interconnected brain cells involves the use of room-size microscopes known as transmission electron microscopes (TEMs). Until now the process of mapping even small areas of the brain using these massive machines would have required several decades. In this week's open-access journal PLoS Biology, research teams at the University of Utah John A. Moran Eye Centre and the University of Colorado at Boulder report technical advances that have reduced the time it takes to process high-speed "colour" ultrastructure mapping of brain regions down to a few months. These advances did not require the invention of new electron microscopes. The technical leap comes mostly from new powerful software that "takes over" the building, connecting and viewing of terabyte scale pictures produced by TEMs. These include automation tools to tag every cell with a molecular signature, capture 25,000 TEM images weekly, and automatically merge thousands of images into gigabyte-scale mosaics and align the mosaics into terabyte-scale volumes. The researchers plan to soon reveal the first molecular-level map of the entire retina and neuronal networks in both a normal mammalian retina and genetic models of retinal degeneration. See the full Story via external site: www.physorg.com Most recent stories in this category (The Brain): 25/05/2013: Scientists develop worm EEG to test the effects of drugs |
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