 |
| Google Research & Lichtman Lab/Harvard University |
NEWSLINE PAPER,- Dr. Jeff Lichtman, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, received a small brain sample in his lab 10 years ago. It's small, 1 cubic millimeter.
But who would have thought that part of the human brain the size of rice contains 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses. Jeff shared the story of his discovery.
"There is nothing better than rice. We started cutting it and looking at it, and it was so beautiful," he told CNN.
"When we gathered data, I realized that we still had a way, far more than we could handle."
Jeff tried to incorporate his discovery into an amazing portrait. He worked with scientists at Google to visualize it beautifully.
The results of Jeff's work with his team of Google scientists for a decade are sweet-fruit. The brain data that's been gathered all this time is mapped into the most detailed human brain sample map ever made.
The researchers managed to create 3D images of 300 million images. This brain sample came from a patient with acute epilepsy whose small part of the brain was cut to stop seizures.
In analyzing the sample, Lichtman and his team first cut it into some thin pieces using a knife whose edges were made of diamonds. Then from it, it is recommended to consume fruits in large quantities and not too much.
 |
| Google Research & Lichtman Lab/Harvard University |
About 30 nanometers, or about 1,000 human hair thicknesses. They're almost invisible, if not because we've covered them with heavy metal, which makes them visible when doing electron imaging," he said.
The team eventually got a few thousand cuts, which were taken with special stamps, thus creating a sort of strip film.
"If you take a picture of each of those parts and align the image, you will get a three-dimensional fragment of the brain at a microscopic level."
That's when the researchers realized that they needed data-related help, because the resulting images would take up a lot of storage space. Lichtman learned that Google was working on a digital map of the fruit fly's brain, in 2019. Google has the right computer hardware to help the job.
 |
| Google Research & Lichtman Lab/Harvard University |
He contacted Viren Jain, a senior researcher at Google who's working on a fruit fly project.
There are 300 million separate images (in Harvard data), Jain says. What makes it so much data is you photograph it with a very high resolution, at the level of individual synapses. And in just a small sample of brain tissue there are 150 million synapses.
To understand these images, scientists at Google use AI-based processing and analysis. Google identifies what cell types are in each image and how they are connected. The result is an interactive 3D model of brain tissue, and the largest collection of data ever created on the resolution of human brain structures.
Google provides it online under the name Neuroglancer. The research was published in the journal Science at the same time, with Lichtman and Jain as one of its authors.
The collaboration between the Harvard team and Google produces colored images that make each component more visible, but also a real representation of a network.
Source : CNN