Google and Harvard Secure 'Brain Map' from Tissue Smaller Than a Grain of Rice

Human brain map. Photo by Harvard University Lichtman Research Institute website capture.

Researchers from Harvard University and Google in the United States have analyzed brain tissue smaller than a grain of rice to obtain a human brain map.

According to foreign media including CNN on the 16th (local time), Dr. Jeff Lichtman, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, obtained a small piece of brain tissue over 10 years ago. This tissue, measuring only 1㎣, was obtained during surgery on a patient suffering from epilepsy.

Dr. Lichtman’s research team sliced the tissue into ultra-thin sections 30 nanometers thick, which is 1/1000 the thickness of a human hair. After staining it with heavy metal substances and examining it under an electron microscope, they observed approximately 57,000 cells, 230 mm of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses within the 1㎣ tissue. The team photographed thousands of these slices individually and connected them to create a microscopic-level 3D brain image, and partnered with Google, which has experience mapping the brain of the fruit fly, to utilize the vast data.

Dr. Viren Jain and other Google scientists used artificial intelligence (AI) to connect the microscope images and reconstruct them in 3D. Foreign media explained that the data used to create the brain map amounted to 1,400 terabytes (TB), equivalent to more than one billion books.

The results of this study were published in the international academic journal Science, and Google also made the data available on an online site called "Neuroglancer." The study particularly confirmed that some pairs of neurons are strongly connected by more than 50 synapses. This is similar to two houses on the same block being connected by 50 telephone lines. Dr. Jain explained that further research is needed to understand why these connections are so strong.

Dr. Lichtman anticipated that the study’s results could help understand unresolved medical issues. He especially hoped it would aid in understanding how the brains of people with mental illnesses or developmental disorders such as autism spectrum differ from typical brains. He added that because the data used in the research is vast, it is being made publicly available online so anyone can examine and study it.

The research team’s next goal is to create a comprehensive map of the mouse brain. It is estimated that mapping the entire mouse brain will require 500 to 1,000 times more data than is needed for the human brain sample map.

Dr. Lichtman stated, "This will be a milestone in completing a full mammalian brain map." He added that mapping the entire human brain would require data equivalent to 1 zettabyte, and currently, it is difficult to store that much data, nor is there an ethical way to obtain well-preserved human brains.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.