Blow your Brain Explorer out with the Human Allen Brain Atlas!

At the SciFoo Camp last year at the Googleplex I suggested a little unconference session (ok, there were some slides ready on my MacBook) and one participant was Chinh Dang (another was this inventor) Technology Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science who made a little intro to the work of the Institute to the 9-10 attendees after this slide of mine:

Paul Allen is the likable, Steven Wozniak-type co-founder of Microsoft, but I guess a bit richer (once we estimated with a friend of mine that he could buy all the Budapest condos circa 180 times or sg like that).

But instead of doing that he provided $100M - amongst others - in seed money to fund the Allen Brain Atlas.

Interdisciplinarity explained: “Eclectic others, who are smart and fun to have around”

I’ve found the following perfect quote in Paul Smaglik’s NatureJobs report on the current human brain mapping efforts of scientists all around the world (emphasis by me): Interdisciplinary groups are trying to combine imaging approaches and analyse them with statistics, and computational and mathematical modelling. Nikos Logothetis, a professor in physiology and cognitive processes at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, has combined data from fMRI and electrophysiology and wants to do both approaches simultaneously, then use “lots and lots of mathematics” to build circuit diagrams.

Karel Svoboda, a group leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm campus, says that all 15 neuroscience groups there take a similar approach, but concentrate on specific regions of the cerebral cortex. Janelia plans to add 10–15 more leaders, says Svoboda: investigators examining neural circuits who use imaging tools; physicists, engineers and computational scientists who are building tools; and “eclectic others, who are smart and clever and fun to have around”.

Finally I understood the essence of interdisciplinarity in a sentence fragment. Thanks, Karel Svoboda.

Big volume brain repair through escaped neural stem cells in mice

In the 15th, December Cell issue Kuo et al. published a study according to which “mice whose brains were severely damaged by loss of the genes “Numb” and “Numblike” in one region just after birth showed substantial mending within weeks. The researchers attributed that repair to neural stem cell “escapees” that had somehow retained or restored the genes’ activity and, with it, their regenerative potential.” Effectively a big brain hole was largely repaired. The finding casts a light on the amplification of the neural plascticity in the subventricular zone stem cell niche. Here you can read the abstract.

$2.9 million NIH Quantum Grant for Neuro-Vascular Regeneration to help stroke patients

For the first time Quantum Grant goes for international research initiative to regenerate damaged brain cells and blood vessels for the treatment of stroke which occurs when an artery in the brain is blocked. The three-year, $2.9 million grant, funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the NIH, will support research on neuro-vascular regeneration, which will make new brain tissues in the laboratory. The new brain tissue is planned to have its own blood supply to allow it to be placed into the damaged brains of stroke patients where it will provide a source of neural and vascular cells that will continue to develop and differentiate, repairing the injured tissue in the process. Main participants are: Karen Hirschi, deputy director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center within the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, Jennifer West of Rice University, Department of Bioengineering, Robin Lovell-Badge, head of the division of developmental genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Link

So this will mainly be a tissue engineering approach for brain regeneration, that is growing implantable brain tissue in vitro in a bioreactor with working blood vessels in it, which needs the combination of more then 2 differentiated cell types. Hard task. My questions: What kind of stem or progenitor cells will be the sources of neural cells? What is the planned volume of the tissue constructs? What type of neurosurgery is needed for a successful implantation?

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