“A new era in brain research”: Researchers create the world’s largest brain atlas

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The research teams also examined how nerve cells in the brain differ from each other in terms of their functions. A total of 21 studies, part of NIH’s Brain Initiative, are presented in the journals Science, Science Advances, and Science Translational Medicine.

A team led by Kimberly Siletti of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, analyzed tissue from 14 human brains. Using a new method, he elucidated which RNA sequences were present in individual brain cells. RNA (ribonucleic acid) serves, among other things, to transmit information from genetic material to produce proteins. Depending on the function of the cells, the RNA sequences within them differ, and from this the researchers were able to obtain 3,313 different cell types. The data set for this study included more than three million brain cells.

In two other studies, researchers examined the epigenetics of individual brain cells. Epigenetic mechanisms determine which gene is removed from the genome in a cell and how often. Epigenetics is also affected by environment, nutrition and aging. Taken together, these three studies created a brain cell atlas that characterizes individual cell types and assigns them to specific brain regions. Access to this atlas is free for all scientists.

“This is really the beginning of a new era in brain research where we can better understand how the brain develops, ages, and is affected by disease,” said Joseph Ecker of the Salk Institute, who was involved in many of the studies. Activities for the brain cell atlas have been brought together in the BICCN (Brain Initiative Cell Counting Network) project. (SDA)

Source : Blick