Researchers at Seattle’s Allen Institute say a new and improved map of the mouse brain reveals not only how different regions are connected, but how those connections are ordered in a hierarchical way.
They add that the mapping techniques behind their study, which was published today by the journal Nature, could shed light on how diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or schizophrenia tangle up connections in the human brain.
The map produced by the study is technically known as a medium-scale “connectome.” It’s been variously compared to a wiring diagram, organizational chart or subway map for the brain. An initial version of the map was published five years ago — and at the time, it was hailed as a landmark for brain science.
Like that earlier version of the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, the newly published map was created by injecting glow-in-the-dark viruses into the brains of mice, and then tracking how brain impulses lit up different types of brain cells.
