Allen Institute for Brain Research Opens It’s Cell Type Database to Researchers
The human brain is made up of some 86 billion neurons and sorting them into “types” is akin to sorting snowflakes. But since 2015 the Allen Institute in Seattle has been building a database and now has opened that resource to outside researchers. “This first release includes electrical properties from approximately 300 living cortical neurons of different types derived from 36 patients, with accompanying 3D reconstructions of their shape or anatomy for 100 cells, and computer models simulating the electrical behavior of these neurons. The database will also contain gene expression profiles, based on measurements of all genes used by 16,000 individual cells, from three adult human brains. Data from these human cells provide an unparalleled window into the intricate components, circuitry and function of the human neocortex, including features that make our brains unique.” “All data can be programmatically accessed via the Allen Brain Atlas Application Programming Interface (API).” MORE
Image Credit: Allen Institute