After the most complete map of the brain of a mammal, obtained from a cube millimeter of the organ taken from a mouse, the first mapalso of a mousewhich allows you to follow the full path of nerves with a Incredible level of detail. Published in Cell magazine by the research group led by the University of Science and Technology of China, the result is due to new technique Of Super-Meloce imaging who completed the work in sun 40 hoursas reported by Nature magazine on his site, and that it could afford to reconstruct the electrical scheme of the entire body.
The researchers coordinated by Guo-Qiang Bi have prepared the body of the scan mice Treating it with substances that make i transparent fabricsremoving fat, calcium and all the other components that block the light. This allowed to obtain one Chiara Visual of the nervesmarked with fluorescent proteins. So the animals were inserted in an innovative specifically built microscopecapable of acquire 3D images and ad very high resolution.
The map is due to the Device capacity Of get very thin sections Of 400 micrometers eachabout the thickness of 4 sheets of paper: the microscope has captured an image of each section el ‘operation was repeated 200 times Without interruptions, which has made it possible to significantly accelerate the times.
Finally, the Images they were combined with each other To obtain the final result. “A slower system would take months or years – comments the researcher – increasing the risk of mechanical failures, signal loss or sample degradation”.
The authors of the study now intend to create one Online platform To allow researchers of consult the data freely. “There are many characteristics – they observe – that They also appear new to expert anatomists“.
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