trying to introduce the study of the
brain to a bunch of students I said if
understanding everything you needed to
know about the brain is a mile I asked
the students how far had we walked in
the smile I got answers three-quarters
of a mile half a mile something set a
quarter a mile and I said I think about
three inches this is unconventional
science it’s just this huge gap in our
knowledge about how brains work largely
because we have no idea what they
actually are made up of at the finest
level when it comes to the nervous
system there are a large number of
diseases where the only real sign that
there’s something wrong is the outward
manifestation of the disease person is
acting crazy or they don’t seem to learn
very well or their movements are
disordered in some way but if you look
at their brain most of the techniques we
have there’s nothing to see you’ve got
to see the wires just have to see them
and you have to see where they come from
where they go what they connect with and
be able to map that out in enough detail
that ultimately you will be able to
render the information that goes into a
brain to see the wiring diagram at the
resolution of every single synaptic
vesicle and every synapse enough
resolution we need to see everything
I’m a lab head of a group of people who
work together it’s kind of a shifting
group of people but it’s difficult work
and it requires many kinds of experts so
there are lots of people working
together on this project what we’re
trying to understand is how cells in the
brain communicate with each other
I have to look at the entire pipeline
from the beginning where we start with
the mouth make a sample process the
tissue cut sections and then ultimately
begin imaging
slice is like you’re cutting a loaf of
bread except you’re trying to slice very
thin pieces of tissue so for a
millimeter depth you get about 33,000
sections
each section of the brain is next to the
section that was sliced just before it
and the slice right after it is the next
frame if you play these frames in
sequence you see the brain not over time
but over space as if you’re looking
deeper and deeper into the brain the big
objects you see that appear and then
slowly get out of appearance those are
nerve cells that are being cut through
and coming off of these cells are these
large light colored objects which are
the dendrites every little object in
here is a little wire to keep track of
these cells from one section to another
what you’d like to do is kind of color
than a min so every one of these colors
have no meaning other than to keep track
of each object from section to section
what this allows us to do is to generate
a wiring diagram based on this we now
know everything about these wires here
and from that we can generate all the
connections of every cell in that area
information forces you into this
uncomfortable position where you have to
kind of say okay I don’t get it but I
know that the real world is more
complicated than the way I’m thinking
about it I feel it’s a very long road
and we’ve just started that’s my view
you
you
brain to a bunch of students I said if
understanding everything you needed to
know about the brain is a mile I asked
the students how far had we walked in
the smile I got answers three-quarters
of a mile half a mile something set a
quarter a mile and I said I think about
three inches this is unconventional
science it’s just this huge gap in our
knowledge about how brains work largely
because we have no idea what they
actually are made up of at the finest
level when it comes to the nervous
system there are a large number of
diseases where the only real sign that
there’s something wrong is the outward
manifestation of the disease person is
acting crazy or they don’t seem to learn
very well or their movements are
disordered in some way but if you look
at their brain most of the techniques we
have there’s nothing to see you’ve got
to see the wires just have to see them
and you have to see where they come from
where they go what they connect with and
be able to map that out in enough detail
that ultimately you will be able to
render the information that goes into a
brain to see the wiring diagram at the
resolution of every single synaptic
vesicle and every synapse enough
resolution we need to see everything
I’m a lab head of a group of people who
work together it’s kind of a shifting
group of people but it’s difficult work
and it requires many kinds of experts so
there are lots of people working
together on this project what we’re
trying to understand is how cells in the
brain communicate with each other
I have to look at the entire pipeline
from the beginning where we start with
the mouth make a sample process the
tissue cut sections and then ultimately
begin imaging
slice is like you’re cutting a loaf of
bread except you’re trying to slice very
thin pieces of tissue so for a
millimeter depth you get about 33,000
sections
each section of the brain is next to the
section that was sliced just before it
and the slice right after it is the next
frame if you play these frames in
sequence you see the brain not over time
but over space as if you’re looking
deeper and deeper into the brain the big
objects you see that appear and then
slowly get out of appearance those are
nerve cells that are being cut through
and coming off of these cells are these
large light colored objects which are
the dendrites every little object in
here is a little wire to keep track of
these cells from one section to another
what you’d like to do is kind of color
than a min so every one of these colors
have no meaning other than to keep track
of each object from section to section
what this allows us to do is to generate
a wiring diagram based on this we now
know everything about these wires here
and from that we can generate all the
connections of every cell in that area
information forces you into this
uncomfortable position where you have to
kind of say okay I don’t get it but I
know that the real world is more
complicated than the way I’m thinking
about it I feel it’s a very long road
and we’ve just started that’s my view
you
you
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