Activity of Whole Fish Brains Mapped Second To Second 56
ananyo writes "Researchers have imaged an entire vertebrate brain at the level of single neurons for the first time. A team of scientists based at the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, were able to record activity across the whole brain of a fish embryo almost every second, detecting 80% of its 100,000 neurons. The work is a first step towards mapping the activity of a whole human brain — which contains about 85,000 times more neurons than the zebrafish brain. The imaging system relies on a genetically engineered zebrafish (Danio rerio). The fish's neurons make a protein that fluoresces in response to fluctuations in the concentration of calcium ions, which occur when nerve cells fire. A microscope sends sheets of light rather than a conventional beam through the fish's brain, and a detector captures the signals like a viewer watching a cinema screen. The system records activity from the full brain every 1.3 seconds."
Neurons in human brain (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice work. I look forward to see the 1 millisecond time reolution. The researchers state that the human brain contain 85000*100000 -> 8.5 billion neurons. Most textbooks says the human brain has about 100 billion neurons. There are also papers out telling that the neocortex of a young male contain about 22.8 billion neurons (Pakkenberg). So the human brain is much more complex than stated.