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How the world’s biggest brain maps could transform neuroscience

Scientists around the world are working together to catalogue and map cells in the brain. What have these huge projects revealed about how it works?
  1. Alison Abbott

    1. Alison Abbott is a writer based in Munich, Germany.

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A very thin slice of a human brain between glass slides is loaded into a special microscope for imaging brain nerve fibres

A human brain slice is placed in a microscope to visualize nerve fibres. Credit: Mareen Fischinger

Imagine looking at Earth from space and being able to listen in on what individuals are saying to each other. That’s about how challenging it is to understand how the brain works.

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Nature 598, 22-25 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02661-w

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 22 October 2021: This feature gave the wrong affiliation for Christof Koch. Koch is no longer president of the Allen Institute, but rather chief scientist of its MindScope Program. The story has also been modified to reflect the fact that John Ngai no longer has an active role at the University of California, Berkeley.

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