{"id":136375,"date":"2022-03-03T10:02:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T18:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/new-brain-map-charts-every-component-in-the-biological-universe"},"modified":"2022-03-03T10:02:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T18:02:33","slug":"new-brain-map-charts-every-component-in-the-biological-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/new-brain-map-charts-every-component-in-the-biological-universe","title":{"rendered":"New Brain Map Charts Every Component in the Biological Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s easy to see why: as shockingly powerful mini-processors, neurons and their connections\u2014together dubbed the connectome\u2014hold the secret to highly efficient and flexible computation. Nestled inside the brain\u2019s wiring diagrams are the keys to consciousness, memories, and emotion. To connectomics, mapping the brain<\/a> isn\u2019t just an academic exercise to better understand ourselves\u2014it could lead to more efficient AI<\/a> that thinks like us.<\/p>\n

But often ignored are the brain\u2019s supporting characters: astrocytes\u2014brain cells shaped like stars\u2014and microglia, specialized immune cells. Previously considered \u201cwallflowers,\u201d these cells nurture neurons and fine-tune their connections, ultimately shaping the connectome. Without this long-forgotten half, the brain wouldn\u2019t be the computing wizard we strive to imitate with machines.<\/p>\n

In a stunning new brain map<\/a> published in Cell<\/em>, these cells are finally having their time in the spotlight. Led by Dr. H. Sebastian Seung at Princeton University, the original prophet<\/a> of the connectome, the map captures a tiny chunk of the mouse\u2019s visual cortex, less than 1,000 times smaller than a pea. Yet jam-packed inside the map aren\u2019t just neurons; in a technical tour de force, the team mapped all brain cells, their connections, blood vessels, and even the compartments inside cells that house DNA and produce energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy to see why: as shockingly powerful mini-processors, neurons and their connections\u2014together dubbed the connectome\u2014hold the secret to highly efficient and flexible computation. Nestled inside the brain\u2019s wiring diagrams are the keys to consciousness, memories, and emotion. To connectomics, mapping the brain isn\u2019t just an academic exercise to better understand ourselves\u2014it could lead to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1495,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-health","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}