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Scientists mapped a brain half the size of grain and found it holds a stunning 1.4 million GB of data

A brain fragment taken from the cortex of a 45-year-old woman served as the basis of the study.
UPDATED JUN 10, 2024
Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA
Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA

The human brain, storing immense volumes of information, is one of the great marvels of this planet. Its complex structure processing loads of information every second still leaves people impressed. To explore the endless possibilities of a brain, a group of Harvard researchers collaborated with machine learning experts at Google to create the most detailed brain maps, and their research yielded some surprising details. The findings, published in the journal Science, can easily be accessed by the public online.

Representative Image Source: Pexels | meo
Representative Image Source: Pexels | meo

A brain fragment was taken from the cortex of a 45-year-old woman while she was undergoing epilepsy surgery. The team then put together a map that showcased a cubic millimeter of the human brain, an area about half the size of a grain of rice. The vast possibilities the minuscule portion held astounded researchers to their very core. During the study, conducted to understand how neurons and wires are connected in the brain, researchers found that the sample surprisingly contained 1.4 million gigabytes of information.

Representative Image Source: Pexels| Tara Winstead
Representative Image Source: Pexels| Tara Winstead

The map of the brain contained approximately 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses, per Live Science. Jeff Lichtman, a professor at Harvard University associated with the study, was boggled at the detail, “I’ve never seen anything like it before."

Representative Image Source: Pexels| Furkan D
Representative Image Source: Pexels| Furkan D

Lichtman and his team relied on the modern technology of AI to create 3D images of what the piece of brain looked like. Thanks to the advanced systems, they were able to acquire a clear and accurate visual map of the portion of the human brain. It was said that these images were of the highest quality they’ve managed to obtain so far. Google Research shared a video on YouTube with visuals and opinions of Lichtman and other researchers. Viren Jain, a senior staff for the project, exclaimed, “We’re trying to understand one of the most fascinating and complex objects we have known in the universe.” 

Representative Image Source: Pexels| Edward Jenner
Representative Image Source: Pexels| Edward Jenner

“Though the brain is a small object, if you start looking at it nanometer by nanometer, you get this exabyte of data which is 100 petabytes, which is a million terabytes and so on," he added. Lichtman explained how they coined the term "connectomics" by accident. “We said maybe we could have a map of all the connections between nerve cells,” he said. The part of the brain from where the tissue was extracted is closely connected with memory, facts, and objects. The brain sample was first immersed in preservatives and then, stained with heavy metals. Using an electron microscope, the team mapped 5,000 tissue slices, each around 30 nanometres thick. “It’s a thousandth of a hair strand,” Lichtman exclaimed. 

The process took 11 months and the professor owed much to Google’s technology, stating the research would frankly be “impossible without” the same. The 150 million connections further demand a deeper and more detailed study, which the team is fervently on. "We're still investigating the function of these connections, but they could explain how very fast responses or very important memories are encoded," Jain mentioned. 



 

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