A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution

• DOI: 10.1126/science.adk4858
• Publication Date: 2024-05-09T17:59:49Z
• Authors: Alexander Shapson...; Michał Januszewski; Daniel R. Berger; Art Pope; Yuelong Wu; Tim Blakely; Richard L. Schalek; Peter H. Li; Shuohong Wang; Jeremy Maitin-She...; Neha Karlupia; Sven Dorkenwald; Evelina Sjostedt; Laramie Leavitt; Dongil Lee; Jakob Troidl; Forrest Collman; Luke Bailey; Angerica Fitzmaurice; Rohin Kar; Benjamin Field; Hank Wu; Julian Wagner-Carena; David Aley; Joanna Lau; Zudi Lin; Donglai Wei; Hanspeter Pfister; Adi Peleg; Viren Jain; Jeff W. Lichtman
• Keywords: Human brain; Neocortex; Brain cortex

To fully understand how the human brain works, knowledge of its structure at high resolution is needed. Presented here a computationally intensive reconstruction ultrastructure cubic millimeter temporal cortex that was surgically removed to gain access an underlying epileptic focus. It contains about 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters blood vessels, and 150 million synapses comprises 1.4 petabytes. Our analysis showed glia outnumber neurons 2:1, oligodendrocytes were most common cell, deep layer excitatory could be classified on basis dendritic orientation, among thousands weak connections each neuron, there exist rare powerful axonal inputs up 50 synapses. Further studies using this resource may bring valuable insights into mysteries brain.