신경기술 및 뇌매핑 연구실

Visualizing and labeling fixed biological organs in 3D allows us to assess 3D landscape of structural and molecular properties of every cells in organs. It is especially beneficial to study the brain since the brain is composed of neural network whose structure is in 3D. To facilitate this goal, we develop Organ-scale histology techniques. SHIELD and eFLASH are great tools for realizing single-cell brain mapping, the mapping of the brain with subcellular resolution. Two techniques can be connected to compose a pipeline(Fig. 3). A brain from an alive animal can be protected, cleared, and expanded using SHIELD, labeled using eFLASH, and then be imaged using high-speed fluorescence microscopy. Whole brain images can be analyzed using AI tools such as machine learning. Below is an example of single-cell brain mapping in our group (Video 1). Video 1. Counting PV+ cells from individual brain regions using machine learning-based algorithm. We also use our pipeline for mapping neural network. Below is an example (Fig. 4.). Fig. 4. Neural network mapping. (a) Labeled neural network with a trace of single neuron and (b) its map. Our Single cell brain mapping extracts structural and molecular information from fixed(‘ex vivo’) brain. To understand brain functions and dysfunctions, functional information needs to be further extracted. Thus, we are establishing a platform(Fig. 5) that can extract multi-modal biosignals from alive mice (‘in vivo‘), and aim to integrate structural, molecular, and functional information altogether. By mapping novel brain networks and engineering their processes, we aim to devise safe and specific therapeutics for brain diseases. Our mission is to invent tools for extracting multi-modal information from individual cells of intact biological systems. Usin