What is Brainbow, and how can we use it?
Brainbow is a new technique, developed in 2007 by Jeff W. Lichtman and Joshua R. Sanes, both professors of Molecular & Cellular Biology in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, allowing researchers to label individual neurons within a population with different colors.
Brainbow leads to higher resolution than any previously-developed imaging methods, as well as quicker connectome mapping. It helps to facilitate the surveying of quantitative and qualitative aspects of circuitry in diverse brain regions. We can use Brainbow techniques to analyze connectional patterns in the brain over the lifespan of the organism. Will this allow us to solve the mystery of the neurobiological underpinnings of healthy aging? Only time will tell. Solving this mystery, for example, would help us to more fully understand the vulnerabilities of an aging nervous system. And on the other end of the spectrum, critical-period circuitry modification remains another mystery; brainbow techniques may open a door on them as well.
Brainbow is a new technique, developed in 2007 by Jeff W. Lichtman and Joshua R. Sanes, both professors of Molecular & Cellular Biology in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, allowing researchers to label individual neurons within a population with different colors.
Brainbow leads to higher resolution than any previously-developed imaging methods, as well as quicker connectome mapping. It helps to facilitate the surveying of quantitative and qualitative aspects of circuitry in diverse brain regions. We can use Brainbow techniques to analyze connectional patterns in the brain over the lifespan of the organism. Will this allow us to solve the mystery of the neurobiological underpinnings of healthy aging? Only time will tell. Solving this mystery, for example, would help us to more fully understand the vulnerabilities of an aging nervous system. And on the other end of the spectrum, critical-period circuitry modification remains another mystery; brainbow techniques may open a door on them as well.
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