March 2012 Announcement and Press Conference

This section of a whole mouse brain reveals connections from the primary somatosensory cortex to other regions of the brain. The primary somatosensory cortex is the first area that registers the sense of touch before sending the information on to be integrated and understood by other brain regions. Full size image for download is 404KB.

Information superhighway. This close-up image reveals connections from the primary somatosensory cortex to the brain's other hemisphere. Full size image for download is 1.07MB.

Green cells in this image are called cortical progenitor cells, which can differentiate to form various predetermined types of brain cells. The progenitor cells here are visible in green through a staining and counterstaining process that visually distinguishes them from other cells in blue. Full size image for download is 380KB.

Here, cortical neurons grown in vitro are visible through a stain (Calretinin, in red) and a counterstain (Dapi, in blue). The high resolution begins to reveal the morphology, or shape, of cell bodies and axons in the individual cells. Full size image for download is 260KB.

This image highlights a coronal section of an entire mouse brain, which was stained to delineate anatomical boundaries in many brain regions. This process reveals areas where the density of cell bodies is higher compared to the density of axonal projections—connections between neurons—as cell bodies are stained in red (NeuN) and axonal projections in green (NF160). Full size image for download is 740 KB.

This image highlights individual Purkinje cells (red, yellow, and green dots) in a region of the cerebellum. Purkinje cells, among the largest neurons in the human brain, are largely controlled by the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA and abnormalities in these cells may be linked to a variety of diseases including neurodegenerative disorders and autism. The blue area is stained with a nuclear stain to highlight the structure of the tissue. Full size image for download is 2.37MB.