First-of-its-kind database of individual neurons launched

The Allen Institute for Brain Science recently released its initial set of data on properties of individual neurons to help understand the building blocks of the brain.

Each of the 80 billion or so neurons in the human brain is unique and they come in an incredible array of shapes, functions and electrical properties. Sorting these cells into types is fundamental to making sense of how the healthy brain functions and what goes wrong in neurological diseases.

The first-of-its-kind database includes information on the location, electrical activity and shape of more than 240 neurons in the visual cortex of the mouse.

Christof Koch, PhD, President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute, said: "Identifying neuronal cell types is essential to unravelling the mystery of how the brain processes information and gives rise to perception, memory and consciousness."

The Allen Cell Types Database is publicly accessible and constitutes the first results in the institute's ten-year plan to understand how activity in the brain forms awareness, decision-making and action.

Included in the release is a Software Development Kit (SDK), which includes the entire source code repository for the cell models. This is all downloadable to allow researchers to run their own virtual experiments.Chinh Dang, Chief Technology Officer of the Allen Institute, said: "The models allow interested scientists to not just observe the patterns of individual cells, but to make quantitative and analytical comparisons that will ultimately help differentiate between cell types."

Future releases will include similar information on cells from the human cortex as well as new data about gene expression within individual cells.

Allan Jones, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of the Allen Institute, said: "By making a database like this available right now to the public, we are building a fundamental framework, allowing us to speak the same language and helping the larger community answer future questions in neuroscience."

A number of the experiments that contributed to these results were carried out on Scientifica electrophysiology rigs using the SliceScope Microscope and Scientifica's platforms and micromanipulators.

The Allen Institute's data and tools are available online at brain-map.org

(Correction - The original article had the headline "First database of individual neurons launched". There are other databases available and the headline has been changed to reflect this.)