OVERVIEW: Project Summary A comprehensive understanding of how neural circuits spanning the entire brain generate the full repertoire of perception and behaviors requires a list of brain cell types, as well the means to target each cell type in order to interrogate the functional interactions that give rise to the emergent properties of the whole system.
PROJECT SUMMARY Although great efforts have been dedicated to characterizing neuronal cell types in the brain, systematic studies on the brain-spinal cord connectome and associated spinal neuronal types are lacking. In this project, a team of seven laboratories proposes to use a highly innovative and multidisciplinary approach to systematically characterize neuronal types in the spinal cord based on their anatomy, connectivity, neuronal morphologies, molecular identities, and electrophysiological properties.
Abstract Human brain is an exceedingly complex network of spatially organized and functionally connected neurons imbedded in glia. In surpasses the mouse brain by three orders of magnitude in terms of sheer numbers of cells, and likely has a more complex organization structure relevant to human-specific cognitive functions. Defining a complete cell atlas of the human brain, including a full catalog of all cell types (i.e.
Project Summary A detailed understanding of the anatomical and molecular architectures of brain cells and their brain-wide organization is essential for interrogating human brain function and dysfunction. Extensive efforts have been made toward mapping brain cells through various lenses, which have established invaluable databases yielding new insights. However, integrative extraction of the multimodal properties of various cell-types brain-wide within the same brain, crucial to elucidating complex intercellular relationships, remains nearly impossible.
PROJECT SUMMARY Integrating molecular, morphological, and connectomic properties is critical for unbiased classification of neuronal cell types in the mammalian brain. Here we propose a novel approach to classify neuronal cell types by brainwide comprehensive profiling of the dendritic morphology of genetically-defined neurons in the mouse brain. We have developed an innovative mouse genetic tool, called Mosaicism with Repeat Frameshift (or MORF), which enables sparsely and stochastically labeling of genetically-defined neurons in mice.
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): It is a longstanding goal in neuroscience to reveal how specific cell types contribute to different neural circuits that underlie cognition, behavior, and disease pathology. Although cell types can be grouped into descriptive categories (excitatory, inhibitory, peptidergic etc.), we know there is a great combinatorial diversity of cels that differ in ion channel and receptor expression levels and fulfill discrete roles within neural circuits.
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The BRAIN Initiative seeks to understand the spatial, temporal and chemical nature of the brain.
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fundamental to understanding brain function is the ability to relate the spatio-temporal firing patterns of specific neurons to their functional connectivity and determine the strength and experience-dependent regulation of those connections.
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proteins in synapses are the fundamental regulators of synaptic plasticity, which ultimately controls the neural circuits that underlie behavior. A major advance in our understanding of how synaptic connectivity is linked to animal behavior comes from transcranial two-photon imaging of dendritic spines in living animals. However, despite the advances made by two-photon microscopy, most experiments have been observational.
