The BRAIN Initiative published 21 papers across 3 journals pushing forwards the understanding of human neuroanatomy. A few of the papers were focused primarily on primate neuroanatomy. Here I will focus on the contributions to an understanding of human adult neuroanatomy.
Science
The main page of the special issue in Science is here
There is an accessible introduction here
There is a paid-article perspective here
Returning to Science, in this paid-article the researchers took 400,000 human cell nuclei and developed a taxonomy.
The cells could be characterised from just a few donors.
In this paid-article, the researchers characterised gene expression across multiple areas of the brain.
They also identify a novel mechanism for cell identification.
In this paid-article, the researchers profiled RNA in 3 million cells in multiple areas.
They found the cortex was hierarchically organised in contrast with the non-cortical areas where there was a diversity of cell types.
In this paid-article, the researchers profiled > 1.1 million cells in 8 cortical areas.
They found area V1 was very complex in terms of neuron subtypes.
They were also able to identify cytoarchitectural patterns according to macroscopic properties.
The researchers in this paid-article characterised 778 GABAergic cortical interneurons using both RNA sequencing and electrophysiology.
The researchers in this paid-article looked at 1.1 million cells and similarly to one of the previous studies mentioned correlated the express genes with a number of neuropsychiatric disorders.
Science Advances
In Science Advances, the main page is here
which links to the 8 articles in this special issue
This accessible article identifies a neuron’s connections in the cortex as either dependent on or independent of local activity. This in turn impacts on the temporal course of connections.
This accessible article outlines a study characterising the Na+ and K+ channels and their role in fast action potentials in human pyramidal neurons.
This accessible paper looks at 3-d mapping of neuronal structures from tissue extracted from brains during operations (e.g. for tumours).
They reference Brodmann’s areas
Just as a footnote, i’ve covered the significance of the Brodmann areas elsewhere here
and here
along with other articles that can be found in the index
The significance is that the #Brodmann areas were originally characterised cytoarchitecturally.
Brodmann linked them to macroscopic structures helping to make them more clinically relevant.
Here the researchers have mapped in detail from the macroscopic 2 microscopic.
In this accessible paper, researchers used neurosurgical (human) tissue to characterise the properties of fast spiking interneurons. These relate to pyramidal neurons and cortical synchronisation.
In this accessible paper, the researchers applied various imaging methods to a post-mortem brain.
They then developed a cellular resolution atlas of Broca’s area relevant to speech.
I’m mainly covering the human studies, so the last human study from this issue is in an accessible paper here
The researchers looked at gene expression and linked this to several disorders including #schizophrenia and #depression with novel findings.
My Conclusion
In conclusion, this is a profoundly important set of papers. Particularly fascinating was the mapping of macro on to microscopic structures as well as physiological properties of mapped neurons.
It will be interesting to see how the data can be structured in a way that will bridge the clinical-science interface.
The most immediate impact will be in characterising neuroanatomy in more detail.
