The bumpy folds that cover most of the visible surface of the human brain, the neocortex, is unique to mammals and is thought to be the seat of much of our complex cognition. The researchers released the data for anyone in the community to use through the Allen Institute for Brain Science’s public portal. The resulting dataset of more than 1.3 million cells is one of the largest sets of brain cell-type data published to date. The Allen Institute team took advantage of recent advances in this technology, known as single-cell transcriptomics, to look at brain cell types across the entire neocortex and the hippocampal formation, a smaller brain structure nestled near the center of the brain. Those earlier studies and the latest study bin different neurons and other brain cells into “types” based on the complete set of genes each individual cell switches on, or its transcriptome. The work expands on previous studies from the Allen Institute that mapped brain cell types in two regions of the neocortex, the outermost structure of the mammalian brain.
This likely reflects how the structures emerge during development.
The authors also found that many of the 388 identified mouse brain cell types are arrayed in gradients across subregions within each of these two large brain structures, meaning neuron types are more similar to their nearby neighbors in the brain than they are to farther away brain cells. “The cells’ genomes contain marks labeling these historical events, and we’re just beginning to understand what they are telling us.” “By studying adult mouse brain cell types broadly and in depth, we are able to gain insights into evolution and development,” said Hongkui Zeng, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a division of the Allen Institute, and senior author on the publication. Hongkui Zeng, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science at the Allen Institute headquarters in 2019. These findings shed light on how the modern mammalian brain likely evolved and how it develops from embryo to adulthood, the authors said. The study was published Monday in the journal Cell. Their study maps all the types of neurons and many other types of brain cells in the adult mouse neocortex and hippocampal formation, two structures that are essential for the cognitive function of the mammalian brain.
There’s a longstanding dogma in neuroscience that certain parts of our brain are more evolutionarily advanced, more human, while the structures that we have in common with more members of the animal kingdom are simpler and less advanced.Ī new study from researchers at the Allen Institute found that - at least in terms of its cellular composition - one of these “older” parts of the brain, the hippocampal formation, is just as complex as a more recently evolved area of the mammalian brain, the neocortex. Study maps all the types of neurons across two major structures of the mouse brain Cell-type parts list of the mouse neocortex and the hippocampal formation yields new information about how the mammalian brain evolved and develops May 18, 2021Ī new study mapping all the neuron types across major parts of the mouse brain identified “gradients” of cell types that pattern the brain.
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