An impressive sketch of an atlas of the brain
A very large American consortium has characterized and classified the cells of the motor cortex with a precision never achieved to date.
Hundreds of billions of elements of different types, connected to each other and communicating in seemingly scattered order in various dialects, and the failings of a few of which can put the whole group in difficulty… Does that sound complex to you? Welcome to the land of neuroscience!
On the surface, everything is simple: the brain contains two types of cells, neurons and glial cells, which nourish, support and protect them. Let us complicate things a little with the dendrites, multiple ramifications conveying information to the body of the neuron, and the axon, a more or less long filament which allows it to send information in turn. Between two neurons, synapses, through which information passes. A seemingly simple scheme, which hides an infinite complexity …
Understanding the brain
An American consortium of thirty research laboratories united within the Brain Initiative, endowed with more than 6 billion dollars, undertook to draw up an “atlas”
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