With each neuron receiving its own color, researchers can tease out the connections between them.īrainbow is just one innovative technology scientists have employed to map connections in the brain.
The technique was dubbed Brainbow, appropriately enough, for the stunning rainbow-like images it creates.
As those proteins accumulate in varying amounts, roughly 100 different colors can emerge. Scientists introduce a random combination of four different fluorescent proteins into each neuron. One of the most exciting developments uses a sophisticated genetic engineering technique to make neighboring neurons glow in a variety of colors. In the hundred years since, technologies Golgi couldn’t possibly have imagined are promising to deliver a “connectome” with remarkable resolution. It was impossible to develop a comprehensive map or “connectome” of where and how each neuron’s dendrites connected with other neurons. Even so the technique was limited: All neurons stained the same color and only a few could be visualized at a time. Golgi's discoveries ushered in a new era in neuroscience by giving scientists a glimpse of a key component of the nervous system. Neurons communicate with each other via chemical and electrical signals and Golgi’s technique enabled scientists to observe neurons in their entirety, including their specialized extensions, axons and dendrites, as they wound their way through brain tissue. That effort began more than 100 years ago, when the Italian scientist Camillo Golgi formulated a way to stain individual brain cells called neurons. Like those 19 th century explorers, scientists have similarly been plotting the connections between the brain cells that underpin our every thought, action, and emotion. Charting the network of rivers that wound their way across the land. In the early 1800s, Lewis and Clark set out to map the western United States.
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