What was the purpose of creating the Brainbow mouse?

By revealing such detailed information about neuronal connectivity and patterns, sometimes even in vivo, scientists are often able to infer information regarding neuronal interactions and their subsequent impact upon behavior and function. Thus, Brainbow filled the void left by previous neuroimaging methods.

What does Brainbow allow researchers to do?

The brainbow technique, featured in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Nature, allows researchers to tag neurons with approximately 90 distinct colours, a vast improvement over the handful of shades currently available to scientists with current fluorescent labelling.

What are confetti mice?

The Confetti mouse is a loxP-based reporter system in which Cre dependent DNA recombination causes the permanent expression of one of several possible fluorescent proteins in a stochastic manner2.

Who invented Brainbow?

In 2007, Joshua Sanes and Jeff Lichtman, both of Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, harnessed these attributes of Cre-lox to create the Brainbow mouse neural labeling system. Brainbow-1 and -2 have been further refined to create Brainbow 3.2.

What does the CRE-LOX recombinase Brainbow technique allowed scientists to study?

What does the Cre-lox Recombinase (“Brainbow”) technique allow scientists to study? It allows scientists to study the neural connections and structure of the brain.

What is the brain connectome?

A connectome* is the complete map of the neural connections in a brain. It is sometimes referred to as a “wiring diagram” of the molecular connections between neurons, trading on the analogy of a brain to an electronic device, where axons and dendrites are wires and neuron bodies are components.

How does mouse Cre work?

The Cre/lox system is one of the most powerful and versatile tools developed for mouse genetics. It gives mouse researchers sophisticated control over the location and timing of gene expression. Cre/lox is usually used to make knockout alleles, but it can also be used to activate gene expression.

How does CRE-LOX system work?

General principle of Cre-loxP system Concerning the mechanism of Cre-loxP system, a single Cre recombinase recognizes two directly repeated loxP site, then the Cre excises the loxP flanked (floxed) DNA, thus creating two types of DNA with circular, excised and inactivated gene Y (Figure 1A).

What is the brainbow?

Brainbow is a genetic cell-labeling technique where hundreds of different hues can be generated by stochastic and combinatorial expression of a few spectrally distinct fluorescent proteins.

How is optogenetics being used today?

Unlike previously developed experimental methods of light control, optogenetics allows researchers to use light to turn cells on or off with remarkable precision and resolution (down to individual cells or even regions of cells) in living, freely moving animals.

Is a connectome possible?

To date, the only organism for which we have a complete connectome is a version of the roundworm C. elegans, a one and a half millimeter organism with a neural network of three hundred neurons and some seven thousand synaptic connections.

Can the connectome change?

Plasticity of the connectome At the beginning of the connectome project, it was thought that the connections between neurons were unchangeable once established and that only individual synapses could be altered. However, recent evidence suggests that connectivity is also subject to change, termed neuroplasticity.

Who developed Cre-lox?

Nat L. Sternberg
The origins of this tool date to more than 30 years ago when Nat L. Sternberg discovered the recombinase, Cre, and its specific locus of crossover, lox, while studying the maintenance of bacteriophage P1 as a stable plasmid.

What do neurons do in a Brainbow?

Brainbows are not just nice to look at; they differentiate neurons from their neighbors, and allow scientists to follow an individual neuron’s branches (the neuron’s axons and dendrites) as they criss-cross over other neuron’s branches and reach their final destinations and connection partners throughout the brain.

Can you map a human brain?

All neuroimaging is considered part of brain mapping. Brain mapping can be conceived as a higher form of neuroimaging, producing brain images supplemented by the result of additional (imaging or non-imaging) data processing or analysis, such as maps projecting (measures of) behavior onto brain regions (see fMRI).