Stunning Views of the Mouse Brain Thanks to Technology From Electrons Manufacturing
Researchers have unveiled a new light‑sheet microscope that repurposes machine‑vision lenses and cameras to image individual neurons and their axons within mouse brains. The device, built by the anatomy group, aims to map neuronal projections from one brain region to another with unprecedented detail. The system combines multiple high‑speed cameras and custom optics, allowing three‑dimensional capture of axonal pathways. It is the most technically challenging of several microscopes under development, requiring extensive R&D to adapt industrial imaging components for biological use. In early tests, the microscope visualized single‑neuron trajectories across cortical and subcortical areas, demonstrating its capacity to generate comprehensive neural circuit atlases. The team highlighted the risk‑laden development process but emphasized the breakthrough imaging performance. Such detailed mapping could transform neuroscience research, speeding discovery of circuit dysfunctions underlying neurological diseases and informing drug development.
The More We Learn About the Brain, the More Mysterious It Becomes.
Dr. Caitlyn Cassimo outlines three enduring mysteries of the brain: cell taxonomy, disease mechanisms, and visual processing. Researchers have cataloged over 5,000 mouse neuron types and are extending this effort to humans, yet a universal classification scheme remains elusive. Mapping projects...
Why Brains Need Friends | Discussion with Dr. Ben Rein
The Allen Institute’s Science Matters fireside chat featured neuroscientist Ben Rein discussing his new book “Why Brains Need Friends.” Rein framed social connection as a biological drive comparable to food and water, noting the Surgeon General’s 2023 declaration of loneliness...
Creating a Cross-Species Spinal Cord Taxonomy
The webinar presented a new Allen Institute effort to build a cross‑species spinal cord taxonomy, leveraging multi‑omics data from human donors, macaques and mice. By generating 10x multi‑ome profiles, spatial transcriptomics and epigenetic maps, the team assembled a comprehensive cellular...
CellTransformer | AI Model Mapping the Mouse Brain in 1,300 Regions
Researchers at UCSF and the Allen Institute unveiled CellTransformer, an AI model that automatically classifies roughly 1,300 distinct regions of the mouse brain, leveraging the scale of modern neuroscience datasets. The system ingests multimodal data—single‑cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and epigenomic...
“No Self, No Time” Christof Koch on Consciousness | SXSW 2026
Christof Koch, a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute, opened his SXSW 2026 talk by defining consciousness as the everyday, subjective experience of seeing, feeling, dreaming and more, and highlighted its status as a private, unobservable phenomenon that must be inferred....
Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain
Doctor Kaitlyn Casimo, a neuroscientist, frames the video around three enduring mysteries of the brain: cell taxonomy, disease mechanisms, and visual processing. She emphasizes that while we know the brain contains neurons, glia, fat, water, and blood vessels, the overarching...
