Neuronal circuits can now be seen in a multicolour 'brainbow'.
The method — described by neuroscientists at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in today’s Nature 1 — allows researchers to see more clearly how individual neurons connect with each other by colouring each one from a palette of about 90 shades.
using genetic engineering to transfer genes for fluorescent proteins into mice such that they are expressed in neurons.
In this way they will be able to build up a detailed diagram of the brain's wiring, which will help to study how it computes.
The scientists inserted a special gene into the mice that produces glowing proteins, extracted from coral and jellyfish. As the mouse thinks, the fluorescent proteins spread out along neural pathways.
Unfortunately, the method only seems to work in mice. I had the same procedure done, but as you can see from the image below, no neural connections showed up at all.
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
chas wrote:I always thought a Bose-Einstein condensate looked like a brain:
Cool!!!
Last night I was searching Google images on "glow" and found this, another mathematical object. It's a variation of the Mandelbrot set.
Wiki wrote:It is also possible to create a composite from three images with different numbers of iterations and different colours; for example, combining a red image with 2,000 iterations, a green image with 200, and a blue image with 20, a technique similar to how astronomers produce false-color images. Some have labelled this the Nebulabrot as it results in a very Nebula-like image.
Thank you for the wonderful images and comments..."fascinating, Captain." Here is an image of my brain in Drone...local nebulae.
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Tell us something.: This is the first sentence. This is the second of the recommended sentences intended to thwart spam its. This is a third, bonus sentence!
oregonden wrote:Thank you for the wonderful images and comments..."fascinating, Captain." Here is an image of my brain in Drone...local nebulae.
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff22 ... ast114.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>
Tell us something.: This is the first sentence. This is the second of the recommended sentences intended to thwart spam its. This is a third, bonus sentence!
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