Integrated Approaches

3 new projects launch on the Allen Institute's OpenScope, a shared neuroscience observatory, supported by the NIH BRAIN Initiative

Researchers have uncovered how signals from a group of neurons in the brain's frontal lobe simultaneously give humans the flexibility to learn new tasks -- and the focus to develop highly specific skills.

UNC School of Medicine researchers led by Ian Shih, Ph.D., used fMRI and a genetic mouse model to study the effects of a neurotransmitter on brain network functional connectivity, a dynamic process crucial for human health and behavior

In the diagnosis of disease, doctors often need to take tissue samples and process them for examination under a microscope. Millions of such biopsies are performed in the U.S. every year. But these pose many challenges. Biopsies may damage healthy tissue. Conventional histology techniques used to examine the samples can require extensive processing and take days.

Addgene, the nonprofit biorepository, now produces and distributes ready-to-use recombinant antibodies. The inaugural collection of monoclonal antibodies is part of the Neuroscience AntiBody Open Resource (NABOR), a platform that provides open access to recombinant antibodies and affinity reagents for the neuroscience community. NABOR is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative.

Over three years, the work — a collaboration between researchers at Cedars-Sinai in L.A., Boston Children’s, and the University of Toronto — led to the discovery of two new groups of brain cells: boundary and event cells.