Neuroscience: The brain in glorious Technicolor


With a combination of genetic tricks and fancy proteins, researchers have colourfully labelled hundreds of individual neurons with distinctive hues to create a ‘Brainbow’. The research, takes mapping to a new level, and results in the labelling of neurons with approximately 90 different colour combinations.

Over a hundred years ago, Ramon Y Cajal’s use of Golgi staining on nerve cells opened the gates to modern neuroscience, but until now it has been tough to map out individual cells in each neuronal circuit. Jeff Lichtman and colleagues have developed the Technicolor version of Golgi staining, Brainbow, allowing more detailed reconstructions of brain circuits. This provides a key step towards modelling how the nervous system works normally and in diseased brains.

CONTACT
Jeff Lichtman (Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma, USA)

Tel: +1 617 496 8943; E-mail: jeff@mcb.harvard.edu