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Curing some of the most vexing diseases first requires navigating the world's most complex structure – the human brain. So, USC scientists have created the most detailed atlas yet of the brain's memory bank.
Cartographers of the cranium, a USC research team has published a report on the international circuitry of the hippocampus that would make the great ancient mapmaker, Ptolemy, proud. Using fluorescent tracers and 3-D animation, the scientific show structures, nerve connections and functions in vivid detail. The study appears today in the newspaper Nature Neuroscience.
Dr. Michael S. Bienkowski, lead author of the study and a researcher at the USC Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics in the Keck School of Medicine, said, "We have constructed the most detailed diagram of the hippocampus to date. USC. "With a better map, we can better understand the hippocampus and how it degenerates leads to diseases."
The human hippocampus is at the base of the brain and it's shaped like a seahorse. It stores memories, helps regulate emotions and guides navigation by spatial processing. It is the first part of the brain by Alzheimer's and hippocampus degeneration can cause epilepsy and other diseases.
In this case, scientists worked on a mouse brain because it was organized similar to a human brain. Scientists are using the new map of the hippocampus to deliver specific drugs to specific neurons with negative effects, said senior author, Hong-Wei Dong, USC professor of neurology and director of the USC Center for Integrated Connectomics (CIC).
The work is part of the Mouse Connectome Project, a USC-led effort that collects lots of data about neural connections in the brain and shares it with researchers in more than 100 countries. Disc Huntington 's disease, Parkinson' s disease, Alzheimer 's disease, autism spectrum disorders and many other diseases.
Scientists have known the basic four-part architecture of the hippocampus for a long time. What's different now is the USC scientists can show its sub-regions and how to interact with the structure. It's a night-and-day difference, akin to seeing lines and power poles slung across a city compared to fully illuminated at night. This new visualization traces neural pathways and connections in remarkable detail using fluorescent dyes as tracers that reveal cells, neuron junctions and connections to the rest of the brain.
"It totally changes our understanding by combining the expression of the mouse hippocampus." impact, "Bienkowski said.
Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death for older people and the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the National Institute on Aging. It accounts for 93,500 deaths nationwide annually, and the prevalence and rate of death is increasing, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
National Institutes of Health / National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH094360-01A1), NIH / NCI (U01 CA198932-01), NIH / NIMH (RF1 MH114112-01), NIH / NIMH (U01 MH114829- 0), NIH / NIMH (F32 MH107071-01-A1), and a pilot fund of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (P50-AG05142).
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Materials provided by University of Southern California. Original written by Gary Polakovic. Note: Content can be edited for style and length.
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