Clarity
The human body is made up of trillions of cells. Cells of the nervous system, called nerve cells or neurons, are specialized to carry "messages" through an electrochemical process. The human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons.
Neurons have specialize cell parts called dendrites and axons. Dendrites bring electrical signals to the cell body and axons take information away from the cell body.
Thanks to Stanford University’s aptly named Clarity, scientists are now able to scan the brain for unobstructed views of neurons and their connections.
What is Clarity?
Clarity is a method of making brain tissue transparent using acrylamide and hydrogel electrophoresis. When accompanied with antibody labeling, it enables highly detailed pictures of the protein and nucleic acid structure of organs, especially the brain.
Image: A yellow fluorescent protein reveals mostly projection (Thy1) neurons in an entire intact mouse brain.
Know more about Clarity:
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/april/clarity.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLARITY
Watch video:
See-through brains
Very interesting, but I'm still hoping for a pre-mortem option.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the gif here is not showing neural activity, but the diffusion of florescent staining. Still, it makes the structure very clear.
The gif shows dendritic and axonal branches of neurons within the hippocampus, is good enough for me.
ReplyDeletePre mortem option sounds rad... waiting.