Rafael Yuste

An international consortium has published the most detailed maps to date of brain development in mammals, including mice and humans. According to the researchers, this work provides a detailed outline of how different types of brain cells arise and mature over time, which “will allow us to begin discovering how alterations in this process can lead to disorders such as autism or schizophrenia.” The results are published simultaneously in a set of 12 articles in the journal Nature. 

A team of neuroscientists from the International Brain Laboratory has described for the first time a virtually complete map of brain activity in mice during the decision-making process. To do so, they recorded the activity of more than half a million neurons across 12 different laboratories, representing 95% of brain volume. The map contradicts a hierarchical view of information processing and shows that decision-making is distributed in a coordinated manner across multiple brain areas. The results are published in two articles simultaneously in the journal Nature.

A set of articles published in Nature and Nature Methods draws a high-resolution map of the structure of and connections between the brain cells of mice. The map is based on data from a single cubic millimetre of brain and includes more than 200,000 cells, around 84,000 neurons and 524 million synaptic connections. Although this is a very small part of the mouse brain, it will help us understand how different types of cells work together.

Nine studies published today in the journal Nature present the most comprehensive and detailed characterization of the mouse brain. The findings reveal the structure and organization of the brain, the function of individual brain cells, and neural circuits. According to the authors, these investigations serve as a tool to delve into the development and evolution of mammalian brains, and how the organization of different types of cells could contribute to neurological disorders in humans.

Researchers have presented the first connectome - a diagram of neural connections - of the whole brain of an insect, a vinegar fly larva (Drosophila melanogaster). The work, which the authors say will inspire new studies of neural circuits and machine learning architectures, is published today in Science.