Mouse Brain Map Could Help Research Into Mental Illnesses

Scientists at Duke University have released a highly detailed model of connections in the mouse brain that could provide generations of neuroscientists new insights into brain circuits and origins of mental illness, such as depression and schizophrenia. The findings are published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

The scientists created the connectome, or map of brain circuitry, by performing an MRI scan of the brain of a healthy mouse at spatial resolution more than 100,000 times greater than that of a conventional clinical MRI. Data were acquired using diffusion MRI, which traces the pathways of nerve fibers called axons throughout the brain.

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