An international team of neuroscientists has constructed highly detailed maps of the adult ape and human brain. They have also depicted various developmental stages of the brain before and after birth. It is the most comprehensive and detailed map of mammalian brains ever created. VU Amsterdam neuroscientists Natalia Goriounova, Christiaan de Kock, and Huib Mansvelder, along with neurosurgeons from Amsterdam UMC, contributed to this atlas.
The map serves as a foundation for the inventory of the entire human brain, as described in the research published in Science and Science Advanced. This detailed map is a significant milestone in the effort to create a catalog of all brain cells, a crucial step toward understanding the brain as a whole. Additionally, it provides more insights into brain diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer's disease.
"We observe that these evolutionarily advanced parts of the human brain contain cell types not seen in mice. The more 'human-specific' brain cell types are among the first to disappear in Alzheimer's disease," says Mansvelder.
Detailed brain map
"Trying to define the types of cells that make up the brain is one of the greatest efforts in the history of neuroscience," explains Ed Lein, who led one of the studies at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Human brains contain approximately 86 billion nerve cells. Each nerve cell has a piece of genetic code, or DNA, containing thousands of genes: a genetic fingerprint. New technologies are necessary to map the genetic fingerprint of each of these 86 billion nerve cells, including tens of thousands of genes or even more.
Living brain cells
There are only a few places in the world where human brain cells in living human brain tissue are studied. This requires close collaboration between neuroscientists and neurosurgeons. The BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network program of the National Institutes of Health has brought together the study in which VU researchers participated in a series of 21 investigations. The goal is to map not only the genetic fingerprint of all brain cells but also the genetic code for the cell shape and function of these cell types.