Small 500 million US dollars, the "brain plan" of the United States must "enlarge the trick"

Text ｜ Xu Rui

According to "Science", the "brain plan", which has been operating for 9 years and costs billions of dollars in the United States, has recently announced its most ambitious plan to date -drawing the world's most comprehensive human brain cell map.

This project, known as the "Brain Planning All -Cell Map Network" (BICAN), has received a $ 500 million funding within 5 years, which will help scientists understand how the human brain work, and how disease affects the human brain.

"BICAN will change the neuroscience research methods of several generations in the future," said John Ngai, director of the "Nih)" Brain Plan "of the National Health Research Institute (NIH).

"Brain Plan" drawn a primary sports cortex cell type diagram. Picture source: Allen Institute

The "Brain Plan" was launched in 2013. At the beginning, it focused on tool development and carried out projects called the "Brain Plan Crystal Census Network" (BICCN "(BICCN), and produced a large number of papers in 2021.

These studies are combined with genetic symbols, shapes, locations, and millions of cells, and identify more than 100 types of cell types that cross the primary sports cortex of the brain.

Hundreds of researchers participating in BICCN are currently completing the cell census of the rest of the mouse brain, which is expected to provide extensive free resources for the neuroscience community.

Unlike BICCN, BICAN plans to describes and draws on the entire human brain's nerve cells and non -nerve cells.

Human brain has 200 billion cells, and the volume is 1,000 times that of the mouse brain, so it is quite challenging. 1/3 of the funds are invested in this part.

Zeng Hongkui (Yin), director of the Ellen Institute of Brain Science, said that BICAN will use similar methods to BICCN, but the scale is larger. The research results will provide a reference for the human genome program of neuroscience. At the same time, the Solk Biological Research Institute will lead the BICAN epigenetic research, trying to cover the entire span of humans from growing to aging.

In addition to BICAN, the "brain plan" also announced two other projects on the same day.

One is to fund the "accurate brain cell access equipment center" within 3 years to develop virus vectors and lipid nanoparticles for locking and adjusting specific types of brain cells from genes. This will help scientists study cell function and find the treatment of related diseases.

The other is the "cross -scale connection network" project, which will receive $ 30 million in funding early next year. The project focuses on tracking the wiring diagram of mammals, for 5 years.

So far, NIH has invested a total of 2.5 billion US dollars in the "brain plan" and will reach $ 5.2 billion by the end of 2026.

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"China Science News" (2022-09-27 The first edition of the original title "Beauty" Brain Plan "project will draw the most whole human brain cell map")

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Edit | Zhao Lu

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