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Bethesda, MD, November 1, 2018-Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have taken an important step in their quest to catalog the "Brain Parts List". The NIH BRAIN Cell Census Network (BICCN) has released its first release of data. Published on a public web portal for researchers, it describes the molecular identities of more than 1.3 million mouse brain cells and the anatomical data of 300 mouse brains, among the largest such characterizations to date.
The BICCN research teams initially focused on a key area of the motor cortex of the mouse, an area of the brain that controls movement, as a major first step in the five-year effort. Launched in 2017, BICCN's projects aim to create comprehensive three-dimensional joint reference atlases for the brain that will ultimately integrate molecular, anatomical, and functional data on brain cell types from both human and non-primate mice. To accelerate the scientific impact, they immediately make their data available to the research community via the web portal.
"No research group could do it alone. He needed to harness the power of a team, "explained Joshua Gordon, MD, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), who helps coordinate the team's work. BRAIN initiative. effort. "The BICCN is a product of nine different teams who each use their advanced tools for the same area of the brain. In doing so, they could compare the results and create a unified resource for the community. "
Molecular imprints
The new molecular fingerprints cover comprehensive information on gene transcription and epigenomic signature maps of brain cells. Each cell type is classified according to its molecular characteristics and identifiable by indicator marker genes.
"We are witnessing an unprecedented and accelerated evolution of technologies enabling the molecular footprint of individual cells," said Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, PhD, responsible for the functional neurogenomics program at NIMH. "BICCN projects are enabling new studies in the wider scientific community by providing new tools and data to understand basic biology and disease conditions at the cellular level. Over the next few years, we expect similar data from millions of human cells that will help us understand what is wrong with human brain disorders. "
"We are proud to be a key part of this initiative, both as the developer of the cell type atlas and as the headquarters of the Brain Cell Data Center (BCDC), designed to bring these data, tools and knowledge to the community. public, "said Michael Hawrylycz, PhD, a researcher at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, among the participating teams.
Mating, parenting, aggression
At the same time, NIH-funded researchers have announced the discovery of cellular secrets of key social behaviors – mating, parenting and aggression – in the mouse brain, combining a new method of unicellular analysis based on method-based imaging. sequencing of single-cell genes.
The ability of the imaging-based method to be used in intact tissue allowed, for the first time, to locate specific populations and gene expression characteristics of cells involved in social behaviors. This is one of the conclusions of a new cellular atlas of the preoptic region of the mouse hypothalamus, known for its mediating functions in social behaviors and homeostatic functions, such as sleep, thirst and thermoregulation . The atlas mapped the spatial organization of cells, profiled gene expression, and identified activity markers.
In a work that shows why cell types are important, Drs. Catherine Dulac, Xiaowei Zhuang, of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and colleagues, describe specific mouse cells involved in social behaviors in the November 1, 2018 issue of the journal Science.
New evidence suggests that circuits composed of types of neurons with distinct gene expression signatures control these behaviors and functions. Groups of distinct cells in the brain were active during mating, parenting, and aggression. Depending on the behavior, revealing cell activity signatures characterized virgin females, virgin pristine virgins and males that spawned mouse pups. In each case, the activated neurons tended to be of the type reducing the activity of the circuit. According to the researchers, this line of research suggests how different types of brain cells communicate to form functional circuits and how this process can be disrupted in certain brain disorders.
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