Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States of America.
PLoS Biol. 2012;10(10):e1001411. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001411. Epub 2012 Oct 23.
Connectivity determines the function of neural circuits. Historically, circuit mapping has usually been viewed as a problem of microscopy, but no current method can achieve high-throughput mapping of entire circuits with single neuron precision. Here we describe a novel approach to determining connectivity. We propose BOINC ("barcoding of individual neuronal connections"), a method for converting the problem of connectivity into a form that can be read out by high-throughput DNA sequencing. The appeal of using sequencing is that its scale--sequencing billions of nucleotides per day is now routine--is a natural match to the complexity of neural circuits. An inexpensive high-throughput technique for establishing circuit connectivity at single neuron resolution could transform neuroscience research.
连接性决定了神经回路的功能。从历史上看，回路映射通常被视为显微镜问题，但目前没有任何方法可以实现具有单个神经元精度的整个回路的高通量映射。在这里，我们描述了一种确定连接性的新方法。我们提出了 BOINC（“单个神经元连接的条形码”），这是一种将连接性问题转化为可以通过高通量 DNA 测序读出的形式的方法。使用测序的吸引力在于，其规模——每天测序数十亿个核苷酸——与神经回路的复杂性自然匹配。一种廉价的高通量技术，可以实现单个神经元分辨率的回路连接性，可能会改变神经科学研究。
