Researchers at the Allen Institute of Brain Science just created the most detailed image of a mice brain. The now complete map contains more than 100 million brain cells, they reported.
The project aim in 1990 was to create a standard, common mouse brain that all the researchers working on mice can reference. Back then, they would define all the different regions by eye. As they get more and more data, that manual curation doesn’t scale anymore. Now, they trace the cells using thin slices of tissue that can be imaged and explored. The result comprises an average of the 1,675 lab mice to be as standard as possible.
Mice are very common to humans. There brains are similar and a uneducated baby mouse would act similarly to a untrained baby. Mice are also easy to be taken care of. They can be trained and breed, just like humans. Now, scientists have a pretty good view on how their brains work. With the mouse brain, they have a new tool to conduct new experiments and programs. Compared to the first achievement in the 1990 era, they change the way we work
