New Way to Gain a Clear View of the Brain

[TECH NEWS]

A group of Japanese neuroscientists is trying to peer into the mind—literally. They have devised a way to turn the brain’s opaque gray matter into a glassy, see-through substance. The group, based at the government-financed Riken Brain Science Institute in Wako, Japan, has created an inexpensive chemical cocktail that transforms dead biological tissue from a colored mass into what looks like translucent jelly. Soaking brain tissue in the solution makes it easier for neuroscientists to see what’s inside, a step they hope will uncover the physical basis of personality traits, memories and even consciousness. “I’m very excited about the potential,” said Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki, a researcher on the team, which published its discovery in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The chemical solution—patented under the name Scale, a phonetic approximation of the Japanese word for “transparent”— could help neuroscientists map the brain’s underlying architecture, though that goal is still a distant one. At the moment, researchers are working to build such a map, called a “connectome,” of mouse brains, which are far less complex than human ones.

10/10/2011, Ritchie S. King/New York Times