Everything the brain does—from storing memories to interpreting sights to regulating emotions—requires energy, all produced by cellular organelles called mitochondria.

However, surprisingly little is known about the distribution and diversity of the brain’s tiny energy processors and how they influence brain health. For instance, how many mitochondria does the brain have? Are they uniformly distributed across the whole brain? Are all brain mitochondria the same? Do changes in the brain’s mitochondria affect mood, cognition, and the development of neurological and psychiatric conditions?

To begin answering these and other questions, Columbia University researchers have created MitoBrainMap, the first-ever atlas of the brain’s mitochondria.