Video: 3-D Image Shows Brain's Circuitry In Highest Resolution Ever | Popular Science

Video: 3-D Image Shows Brain's Circuitry In Highest Resolution Ever | Popular Science: But his new method, which involves taking nano-thin slices of a mouse’s cortex, lets scientists actually count the synapses and catalog them according to their type. Called array tomography, it uses high-resolution photography, fluorescent proteins and a supercomputer to put everything together.

Smith and colleagues took a slab of mouse cortex and sliced it into 700-nanometer-thick sections. The sections were then stained with antibodies that would match 17 synapse-related proteins, and the scientists also added fluorescent molecules that glow in different colors in response to light. The antibodies were added in groups of three, and the brain tissue started changing colors. A computer took massive amounts of high-resolution pictures during each staining session, which were ultimately stitched together into a 3-D image...