Google and Harvard unveil most detailed ever map of human brain

Harvard University, in collaboration with Google, has unveiled the most detailed map of human brain tissue ever created, reports CNN.

As per the report, this achievement took ten years of work, which offers new opportunities for understanding the brain's complex network of neurons and could pave the way for breakthroughs in treating neurological and psychiatric conditions.

The project began when Dr Jeff Lichtman, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, received a tiny brain sample from a patient with severe epilepsy. Although the tissue was smaller than a grain of rice, it contained 57,000 cells, 230 millimetres of blood vessels, and over 150 million synapses. 

This small sample eventually generated 1,400 terabytes of data—the equivalent of more than a billion books.

"This tissue was less than a grain of rice, but when we started cutting it and looking inside, we realised the sheer amount of data was far more than we could handle," Lichtman explained. 

"We spent the next decade collaborating with scientists at Google to process and analyse it," he added. 

The process involved cutting the brain sample into ultra-thin slices, each about 30 nanometers thick—1,000 times thinner than a human hair. These slices were then stained with heavy metals and imaged with electron microscopes to capture the brain's microstructure. 

Google's AI-powered tools were key to making sense of the 300 million images that resulted from this process.

The team's efforts culminated in the creation of an interactive 3D model of the brain tissue, now available online as "Neuroglancer." It represents the largest dataset ever produced at this level of detail for human brain structure, with its findings published in the journal Science.

"We're not making this up—these are real neurons, real connections," said Google's Viren Jain, one of the co-authors of the study. 

The map provides a truthful representation of the brain's intricate wiring, with colorised images highlighting individual components.

Among the data's many surprises is the discovery that pairs of neurons are connected by more than 50 synapses, a phenomenon that is not yet fully understood. 

"It's as if two houses had 50 phone lines connecting them. Why? We don't know yet, but this opens up new areas for further investigation," said Jain.

The implications of this study are significant, according to Dr Lichtman.

"We hope that by comparing this data to brains with disorders like autism or schizophrenia, we might finally uncover the structural differences that lead to these conditions," he said. 

The dataset is so large that researchers believe it contains many more undiscovered details, which is why it has been shared publicly for other scientists to explore.

Neuroscientist Olaf Sporns from Indiana University praised the achievement, saying, "Mapping the human connectome is critical for figuring out how the brain works. This study breaks new ground and offers exciting opportunities for future discovery."