Sunday, November 11, 2012

The genetic essence of our brains

http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v9/n11/full/nmeth.2236.html?WT.ec_id=NMETH-201211

Two complete normal brains from adult male donors were first imaged by magnetic resonance imaging, then cut into sections, analyzed using histological techniques and finally reduced to 900 samples

Despite the fact that the neocortex is composed of over 15 billion neurons, the genetic signature of its different regions proved to be relatively homogeneous.

The group found that genetic variation across the different neocortical areas followed a graded pattern: the closer two neighboring regions were, the more similar their transcriptomes.

calcium binding protein CALB1, with a profile that was unique to humans

Hawrylycz, M.J. et al. An anatomically comprehensive atlas of the adult human brain transcriptome. Nature 489, 391399 (2012).

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