Amazing set of monster data-rich papers on the awe-inspiring complexity of the mammalian and mouse CNS.
If you have lost faith in the rigors of science then read these papers to gain it back. A true labor of love, collaboration at its best, and cutting-edge technologies, and obsessive quantification.
This is a massive cartographic effort that provides a solid foundation for future functional studies of many diseases in human.
Do not let the metaphor of “a brain atlas” carry you away. All mouse data here are from a single genome of mouse C57BL/6J. To understand variation in behaviors, variation in brain aging, variation in disease risks we will need thousands of these types of data sets. With many data sets from genetically variable mice we can then bridge from genes to brain structural differences, to higher order traits and variable outcomes. That will be precision neuroscience.
Like the Human Genome Project we sometimes have to start with 1. Twenty years later we have pushed the technology forward and have millions. Then we will be in a great position to understand causal cascades snd the key role of environmental and social context in brain variation and variability in behavior.
On the “in the mouse” issue. Sure huge numbers of quantitative difference in brain architecture and cell types, but also impressive conservation. Mice, rats, primates, rabbits, and screws, are all members of the superprimate superorder of mammals. Mice are a great starting point for this kind of work, that even make some sense from an evolutionary context.
If you have lost faith in the rigors of science then read these papers to gain it back. A true labor of love, collaboration at its best, and cutting-edge technologies, and obsessive quantification.
This is a massive cartographic effort that provides a solid foundation for future functional studies of many diseases in human.
Do not let the metaphor of “a brain atlas” carry you away. All mouse data here are from a single genome of mouse C57BL/6J. To understand variation in behaviors, variation in brain aging, variation in disease risks we will need thousands of these types of data sets. With many data sets from genetically variable mice we can then bridge from genes to brain structural differences, to higher order traits and variable outcomes. That will be precision neuroscience.
Like the Human Genome Project we sometimes have to start with 1. Twenty years later we have pushed the technology forward and have millions. Then we will be in a great position to understand causal cascades snd the key role of environmental and social context in brain variation and variability in behavior.
On the “in the mouse” issue. Sure huge numbers of quantitative difference in brain architecture and cell types, but also impressive conservation. Mice, rats, primates, rabbits, and screws, are all members of the superprimate superorder of mammals. Mice are a great starting point for this kind of work, that even make some sense from an evolutionary context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euarchontoglires