This new technology promises to revolutionize the study of Alzheimer’s disease and scans half the brain in 4 days at the molecular level.

Neuroscience has gone through two great revolutions. One was the discovery of the neuron at the end of the 19th century, the other was the invention of magnetic resonance imaging almost 90 years later.. There was certainly more innovation between them, but these two may have changed the field the most. Well, a team of researchers led by Kwanghoon Chung promises to be the third great revolution in neuroscience now, just 50 years after the previous one. If Chang and his team have indeed achieved what they claim to have achieved, it means that we can now analyze the structure of an entire hemisphere of the brain, from its grossest geometry down to the molecular scale.and that could change everything.

Institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Seoul National University, the Picower Institute for Memory and Learning, and many others are participating in the research. A collective work of several years, which finally managed to get into that same Science magazine.And this is not surprising, because this technology could allow us to create brain libraries with a level of detail that we have never even dreamed of. In fact, the authors themselves have no trouble pointing out that “This technology platform will improve our understanding of human organ function and disease mechanisms, spurring the development of new treatments.” But how does it work?

Imaging techniques, like any other image, require the highest possible resolution.. Be it spatial or temporal resolution, which in other words is nothing more than the precision of detail that their images can capture, or the precision with which they can localize certain processes in time respectively. The problem is that to obtain greater spatial resolution, these methods had to be limited to relatively small areas of the brain. A unique practical application of the principle “he who covers much, compresses little”. That’s why it’s so exciting that this highly precise technique can be applied to the entire hemisphere of the brain.

Moreover, this method does offer the possibility of analyzing brain architecture at different scales., not only at the molecular level, but also through cell restoration. According to Dr. Chung: “This technology chain actually allows us to extract all these important functions from the same brain in a completely integrated way.” Now in the paper they note that while half the brain is scanned, as you zoom out, more localized parts of the brain are analyzed in a way that puts the subcellular structure of the part into context with more of a view of its surroundings.

This whole process essentially consists of three equally innovative steps that reduce analysis time by up to 100 hours after sample processing. The first innovation is the technique of cutting out the brain, because at almost one and a half kilograms it is too voluminous to analyze its insides without cutting it finely. Materials engineer Juhyuk Park and his team were responsible for the development of Megatome.a system that manages to cut the brain into thin slices without causing loss of material. They achieve this by using a blade that vibrates from side to side at a greater speed and amplitude than other previous vibrotomes. (that’s what this technology is called). In this way they were able to reduce the cutting process from several months to 1 day..

The next technological innovation is called mELAST. At this stage, a hydrogel is introduced into the samples, which makes them transparent, except for the structures that we want to label with antibodies.. This allows them to see through thicker incisions than those typically used. As if that weren’t enough, this method also increases the flexibility and stability of the specimen.making it easier to handle and more stable over time.

Finally, UNSLICE is a computational process that terminates. Its task is to reconstruct the structure of the brain that we have cut, establishing relationships of continuity between the details of one cut and the next.. So to say: if we cut a loaf of seeds into slices and want to put it back together, we will need to know which seed fragment from one slice corresponds to each fragment from the next slice. Something similar happens with neurons, blood vessels, and many other parts of these neurological samples..

Applications in science are always wider than we can imagine, and this technology still has everything to offer us.. The researchers themselves analyzed the brains of Alzheimer’s patients to compare them with the brains of healthy people. The result shows that while overall the number of connections between neurons was the same in healthy and diseased brains, they were lost in certain areas where amyloid plaques were present.. Whether the plaques are the cause of the disease or perhaps a consequence is another matter, but there is clearly a correlation. The results are still very preliminary, but they illustrate what this technology can achieve..

In fact, the researchers themselves note that this technology can be applied to other organs, which will allow a much better understanding of the cellular and biochemical processes of their tissues. So, although the long lists of applications cannot yet be listed, it is quite possible that the launch will not be long in coming..

NOT KNOWN:

• Despite how interesting this method is, it is not a replacement for functional magnetic resonance imaging, which we can use to see brain activity. In fact, it won’t even replace the more traditional MRI, but it will perhaps moderate its use by making it more specific than it has been so far.

LINKS (MLA):

• “An integrated platform for multi-scale molecular imaging and phenotyping of the human brain” The science ((LINK:EXTERNAL|||http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adh9979″ target=”_blank”>))