Google’s New Effort to Map the Human Brain Begins with Mice

Mapping the Human Brain: Google’s Ambitious Project

Google Research, in collaboration with Harvard’s Jeff Lichtman, is making strides in brain mapping. The current technology doesn’t allow for a complete human brain map, so they are starting with mice. This step-by-step approach aims to build a foundation for future human brain mapping.

The Scope of the Project

A few months ago, the team mapped one cubic millimeter of the human brain, which required 1.4 petabytes of data for just 16,087 neurons. Now, Google’s Connectomics team plans to map the entire hippocampus of a mouse. This region, critical for memory and spatial navigation, consists of about one million neurons and will occupy around 25 petabytes of data. Though this represents only 2-3% of a mouse brain, it’s a significant leap towards understanding mammalian brain functions.

Relevance and Future Goals

The mouse brain serves as a practical model because it resembles the human brain in many aspects, despite its smaller size. Jeff W. Lichtman, a neurobiologist, explains that the mouse brain, when viewed under a microscope, is a miniaturized version of the human brain. This similarity makes mice ideal subjects for studying human diseases and brain functions.

The Long-Term Vision

The project, expected to complete the mouse hippocampus map by 2028, will take five years. Viren Jain, a Google Research director, notes that mapping the entire human brain with current technology would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. By starting with mice, Google aims to refine the techniques needed for more extensive future projects.