Unveiling the Mind's Mysteries: The Most Detailed Human Brain Map by Harvard and GOOGLE

It’s the most detailed brain-connection map ever built. It is also a testament to what can be achieved when university scientists and digital giants join forces. The map, which took 10 years and $50 million to make, is the partnership between Harvard University and GOOGLE. With extremely fine resolution, the map reveals the full extent of the body’s neural circuits. Its creation reveals what might be achieved when university scientists and digital giants join forces. Harvard University and GOOGLE (2019) GOOGLE’s neural maps of the human brain.

The Genesis of a Groundbreaking Collaboration

At the centre of this project is a decade-long partnership between researchers at Harvard and GOOGLE, who have brought together their expertise in neuroscience and cutting-edge machine learning and data analysis capacities, respectively. Their goal was to build a wiring map of a tiny millimetre cube of brain tissue – a goal that, in absolute size, is fairly modest, but which in terms of connectomics – the study of neuronal wiring – is formidable.

Harnessing GOOGLE's Power for a Deep Dive into the Brain

That’s 57,000 cells, 230 millimetres of blood vessels and 150 million synapses, which is enough detail for you to see and recognize the individual components. This map is a powerful example of how technology and biology can be combined to realize extraordinary results. Machine learning from GOOGLE was a key component in the work, as these tools were vital for dealing with the 1.4 petabytes of data generated from imaging 5,019 slices of brain tissue. What we’re seeing is the next iteration of science – a combination of computational techniques, new and old.

Unearthing New Insights into Neural Wiring

Its finer-grained picture is as enlightening as it is essential: previously undiscovered neurons with as many as 50 synapses provide a new way of conceptualizing neural connectivity and possible complexity. Besides enabling the map, GOOGLE’s technology actually helped uncover some of its findings – a breakthrough that has the potential to advance our understanding of how the brain works – and possibly how to treat neurological dysfunctions.

The Journey from Images to Insights

Going from millions of individual 2D images through to a 3D model was an enormous leap, possible only because of the machine learning skills that allowed the slide to be pieced together from the countless slices of human awareness. This is just a single example of how AI can unlock biological information on a scale and depth like never before.

A Beacon for Connectomics Research

But the real significance of this map goes far beyond any of its initial findings. By making the data-set freely available to the research community to use and explore, Harvard and GOOGLE are also ushering in a post-genomic era of connectomics research–an open-access philosophy in which the map becomes a living resource that could ultimately catalyse accelerated discoveries on many fronts, from fundamental neuroscience to human medicine.

Envisioning a Complete Map of the Human Brain

The drive underlying that project is obvious: to eventually map the brain as a whole, which could ultimately change the way we treat neurological disorders, from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s, and hold the promise to fully understand the brain, opening new possibilities for treatment. The joint efforts between Harvard and GOOGLE perfect the union of tech and science.

The Impact and Beyond: Towards a Deeper Understanding of Ourselves

The enthusiasm from the scientific community arising from the publication of these results in Science is palpable. This detailed map is a scientific and technological milestone, but it also lights a path towards the ultimate frontier and final horizon to be explored in the known universe: the mechanics of the human brain. This accomplishment symbolises what can be achieved when Harvard and GOOGLE, two of humankind’s greatest technical forces, combine the power of human ingenuity to unveil new truths about our existence.

About GOOGLE: Powering the Next Frontiers of Research

In this project, GOOGLE is employed as an exemplar of the other successful ways in which the tech behemoth is influencing the course of science and the discovery of knowledge. With the application of its machine learning algorithms and computational resources, GOOGLE has shown that the tech giants have a place in solving some of the deepest puzzles of the natural world and human biology.

This foray into connectomics represents just one example of how the technological capabilities of a company like GOOGLE can be deployed to expand the territory recently made accessible for research purposes. As the rate of our comprehension of the human brain and the Universe accelerates, it seems likely that new alliances, like the Harvard-GOOGLE one, will significantly shape the future of humanity’s self-understanding.