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Activity of Whole Fish Brains Mapped Second To Second

Posted by Soulskill on from the pretty-pictures dept.

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."

3 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing! 4513 bytes per neuron by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 5, Informative
    That's amazing! I hope that there will be good data that can be pulled out of the large dataset. I wonder if the 1.3 seconds per frame time is enough resolution to capture some of the key activities since there are many neurons that can fire more than once per second.
    .
    Each hour-long experiment generated 1 terabyte of data and they were able to detect 80% of the 100k neurons in the fish's brain. So that works out to 1 terabyte $\div$ 1 hour * (3600 seconds/hour) / (1.3 seconds / data item) / (80000 neurons) = 4513 bytes per neuron in the dataset.

    Run that as

    perl -e "print 1e12/(2769.23077)/(.8*1e5)"; echo 4513.88888763503

    I wonder how much faster the ata really needs to be captured in order to get as much resolution as needed to understand what's going on.

  2. Re:They achieved cellular resolution! by ldobehardcore · · Score: 3, Informative

    Interesting fact: neural activity can be modulated by shining light on the neurons. Here's a video of a mouse forced to RUN when a blue light is shone onto it's motor cortex

    --
    Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
  3. Re:Feedback? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The technique relies on fluorescence, not bioluminescence.

    Here is a breakdown of an earlier version of the molecular biology side of the technology.

    http://brainwindows.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/three-cheers-for-gcamp/