Examining the human brain at the cellular level in more detail than ever before, scientists have identified an enormous array of cell types - more than 3,300 - populating our most complex organ, creating an atlas that may help pinpoint the cellular basis of neurological diseases and facilitate new therapeutics.
A laboratory assistant holds one hemisphere of a healthy brain in the Morphological unit of psychopathology in the Neuropsychiatry division of the Belle Idee University Hospital in Chene-Bourg near Geneva March 14, 2011.
The research identified 3,313 cell types, roughly 10 times more than previously known, and the complete set of genes used by each cell type while also mapping their regional distribution in the brain. One surprise was that the cellular diversity was concentrated in evolutionarily older parts of the brain - the midbrain and hindbrain - instead of the neocortex, responsible for higher cognitive functions including learning, decision-making, sensory perception, memory and language.
They confirmed a linkage between microglia cells - a type of immune cell in the brain - and Alzheimer's and uncovered a linkage between certain types of brain neurons and schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by a disconnection from reality.
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