Introducing the brain: more fine detail (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 30, 2024, 19:04 (26 days ago) @ David Turell

Very fine slices:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/biological-puzzles-human-brain-visual

"Scientists had hints of these mysteries in earlier peeks at this bit of brain (SN: 6/29/21). But now, those details have been brought into new focus by mapping the full landscape of some 57,000 cells, 150 million synapses and their accompanying 23 centimeters of blood vessels, researchers report in the May 10 Science. The full results, the scientists hope, may lead to greater insights into how the human brain works.

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"The newly mapped brain sample was removed during a woman’s surgery for epilepsy, so that doctors could reach a deeper part of the brain. The bit, donated with the woman’s consent, was from the temporal lobe of the cortex, the outer part of the brain involved in complex mental feats like thinking, remembering and perceiving.

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"Some of those objects were surprising. Certain nerve cell pairs had extremely tight bonds, making 50 or more contact points with each other. “This is like if two houses in the neighborhood for some reason had 50 different phones connecting just those two houses,” Jain says. “It’s like, what’s going on here?”

"Other views revealed mysterious whorls formed by message-sending tendrils called axons. “The axon would loop in on itself and make a giant knot,” Jain says. “We definitely didn’t expect to see these.” Scientists don’t know why these swirls exist."

"'And some nerve cells in the deepest layer of the brain bit appear to have mirror-image twins — another mystery.'"

Comment: look at the Illustrations. Amazingly packed with neurons.