by For many other researchers, creating a map of the 86 billion neurons, or nerve cells, that make up the brain would be considered an almost insurmountable project. However, researchers at the Allen Institute are taking on that task, saying it will lay the groundwork to help better understand how the brain works the way it does.
The Allen Institute, founded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen in 2003, was originally created to map gene activity in the mouse brain, but researchers quickly began including studies of the human brain in their work. The non-profit is a workplace of hundreds of researchers who, in large teams, launch ambitious ‘shotshot’ projects that could help solve the biggest questions about diseases that affect millions of Americans.
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“He does things a little differently than other research institutions,” Dr. Rui Costa, president and CEO of the Allen Institute, told ABC News. “We do big moonshot projects in the life sciences that sometimes last 10, 15 years, where interdisciplinary teams of scientists answer a specific question, and then we share openly with the world.”
Costa says these projects are fundamental work that can be used by other institutions. However, they are extremely complex and need to be done at scale, which requires a multidisciplinary team, or even larger consortia.
Dr. Ed Lein, senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, said that it was only recently that the tools existed to enable researchers to make high-resolution maps of the brain, which can give a complete description of the cells to all that does. up the organ.
He says the maps, described as a lunar project, will be like genome sequencing, which – when completed – will describe the entire genetic makeup of a person.
“That becomes a very powerful reference not only for understanding the normal brain but for understanding disease,” Lein told ABC News. “So, we’ve also had major efforts in trying to understand Alzheimer’s disease, and the very specific cell types that may be vulnerable in disease, as well as trying to create new tools that can target types a particular cell that might actually be useful for a gene. therapies.”
“For example, if we can identify the types of vulnerable cells, we can now develop tools to check to start targeting them,” said Lein. “So it’s a whole new field of research opened up by new technologies.”
There are hundreds of brain diseases, meaning millions of Americans suffer from them. Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common form of dementia, affects about 6.7 million people. Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder caused by the degeneration of nerve cells in the part of the brain that controls movement, is expected to affect 1.2 million people by 2030.
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Neither Alzheimer’s disease nor Parkinson’s disease has a cure, and most treatments focus on managing symptoms and maintaining quality of life. The Allen Institute team hopes that its research can change that, and that it could lead to targeted therapies that can help eradicate the diseases.
“In order to develop any kind of pharmacology or pharmacotherapy, or even to understand the way diseases work and how they damage the brain and the cell types, we need to understand what the basic core components of the cell,” Dr. Brian Lee, senior scientist in the department of integrative cell physiology at the Allen Institute, told ABC News. “So this gives people that information to start making some targeted approaches to fix or treat Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.”
Lee explained that in the case of Parkinson’s disease, there is a loss of cells in the basal ganglia circuit, which is located near the center of the brain and is responsible for controlling movement in the body.
However, it is not clear which types of cells are affected by disease. A map of brain cells could help answer this question.
“So it’s going to be really helpful, the more we start to understand all the cell types in the brain and how different cell types affect disease, we can start to take a more selective and targeted approach to treat it. and, hopefully, put an end to it,” Lee said.
Lein also said that, in relation to Alzheimer’s, research has shown that specific types of cells are affected at different points in the progression of the disease and in different regions of the brain. He said the brain map can be used to map data on Alzheimer’s to determine if and how these neuronal losses lead to cognitive decline.
“I think this is just the beginning of this field and so just like the genome, these maps will serve this role that anyone who is studying any disease can now come and get this high resolution view on what is happening in that disease,” said Lein. “And so, it’s kind of a big community moon here, but it starts with this basic basic atlas.”
The Allen Institute is also working on other ways to try to better understand the brain. For example, Lee is working on a project that allows researchers to essentially comb or evoke a single neuron to understand its functional properties. The cell is also filled with dye to further determine its shape and function. Because there are thousands of cell types in the brain, all performing very different complex tasks, Lee said this helps to understand how each cell contributes to the brain’s composition and function.
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He added that the institute has also collaborated with local neurosurgeons who often have to remove healthy brain tissue from patients during surgery, for example in cancer patients to remove a brain tumor. Researchers at the institute then collect some of that tissue and use the limited time they have and the living tissue to grow it and study individual neurons.
Allen Institute CEO Dr Rui Costa said this research not only lays a framework for further and deeper understanding of the brain, but also provides answers to what makes humans unique creatures. .
“Understanding the brain is a very important thing for humans, because the brain is essential to who we are, what we love, what we hate, what we remember, how we behave, how we feel ,” he said. “Everything that our persona does depends, in a way, on how our brain changes, and that they experience things throughout life. Therefore, understanding the brain is one of the quests of humanity.”
Scientists embark on a ‘moonshot’ project that maps the human brain in hopes of fighting disease appeared first on abcnews.go.com
