University of Utah’s 2016 Research as Art competition – NIH Director's Blog (original) (raw)

Snapshots of Life: Color Coding the Hippocampus

Posted on September 21st, 2017 by Dr. Francis Collins

Credit: Raunak Basu, University of Utah, Salt Lake City

The final frontier? Trekkies would probably say it’s space, but mapping the brain—the most complicated biological structure in the known universe—is turning out to be an amazing adventure in its own right. Not only are researchers getting better at charting the brain’s densely packed and varied cellular topography, they are starting to identify the molecules that neurons use to connect into the distinct information-processing circuits that allow all walks of life to think and experience the world.

This image shows distinct neural connections in a cross section of a mouse’s hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in the memory of facts and events. The large, crescent-shaped area in green is hippocampal zone CA1. Its highly specialized neurons, called place cells, serve as the brain’s GPS system to track location. It appears green because these neurons express cadherin-10. This protein serves as a kind of molecular glue that likely imparts specific functional properties to this region. [1]

Posted In: Science

Tags: art, brain, CA neurons, CA1, CA2, CA3, cadherin, cadherin-10, cerebral cortex, dentate gyrus, hippocampus, mouse hippocampus, neural connectivity, neurology, neuroscience, place cells, University of Utah’s 2016 Research as Art competition