Petkantchin Remy, Berchet Adrien, Peng Hanchuan, Markram Henry, Kanari Lida
Blue Brain Project, EPFL, Geneva, Switzerland.
New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, Institute for Brain and Intelligence, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
Nat Commun. 2025 Jul 18;16(1):6611. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-62030-3.
Recent experimental advancements, including electron microscopy reconstructions, have produced detailed connectivity data for local brain regions. On the other hand, for inter-regional connectivity, large-scale imaging techniques such as MRI are best suited to provide insights. However, understanding the relationship between local and long-range connectivity is essential for studying both healthy and pathological conditions of the brain. Leveraging a dataset of whole-brain axonal reconstructions, we present a technique to predict whole-brain connectivity at single cell level for pyramidal cells in the cortex by generating detailed whole-brain axonal morphologies from sparse experimental data. The computationally generated axons accurately reproduce the local and global morphological properties of experimental reconstructions. Furthermore, the computationally synthesized axons generate large-scale inter-regional connectivity, defining the projectome and the connectome of the brain, thereby enabling the in silico experimentation of large brain regions.
最近的实验进展，包括电子显微镜重建，已经产生了局部脑区的详细连接性数据。另一方面，对于区域间连接性，诸如MRI等大规模成像技术最适合提供相关见解。然而，理解局部和长程连接性之间的关系对于研究大脑的健康和病理状况至关重要。利用一个全脑轴突重建数据集，我们提出了一种技术，通过从稀疏的实验数据生成详细的全脑轴突形态，来预测皮层中锥体细胞在单细胞水平上的全脑连接性。通过计算生成的轴突准确地再现了实验重建的局部和全局形态学特性。此外，通过计算合成的轴突产生大规模的区域间连接性，定义了大脑的投射图谱和连接组，从而能够在计算机上对大的脑区进行实验。
