Cubic Millimetre of Brain Mapped in Spectacular Detail May 9, 2024 I just read this (brief) article on the Nature website, and found it to be fascinating. A 45-year-old woman underwent surgery to treat her epilepsy and had a fragment of her brain removed from the cortex. Neuroscientists cut the sample into around 5,000 slices that could be imaged using electron microscopes. They then stitched the images together. You can view the entire dataset using their web-based program and accessing each database, if you can figure it out. That resides here. (I've not messed with it. It seems complex.) When examining the model in detail, the researchers discovered unconventional neurons, including some that made up to 50 connections with each other. “In general, you would find a couple of connections at most between two neurons,” says Jain (a neuroscientist.) Elsewhere, the model showed neurons with tendrils that formed knots around themselves. “Nobody had seen anything like this before.” And all of this from a sample amounting to one-millionth of a whole brain. Rendering based on electron-microscope data, showing the positions of neurons in a fragment of the brain cortex. Neurons are coloured according to size. A single neuron (white) shown with 5,600 of the axons (blue) that connect to it. The synapses that make these connections are shown in green.