Researchers have made significant strides in understanding how various brain cell types collaborate to create extensive functional networks within the human brain. These intricate systems are essential for a wide range of functions, including sensory processing and complex decision-making, which could lead to new discoveries regarding brain health and disorders.
Rutgers researchers at the Brain Health Institute (BHI) and the Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research (CAHBIR) have made significant strides in understanding how various brain cell types collaborate to create extensive functional networks within the human brain. These intricate systems are essential for a wide range of functions, including sensory processing and complex decision-making, which could lead to new discoveries regarding brain health and disorders.
By identifying these cellular foundations, the study published in Nature Neuroscience provides a clearer insight into the cellular basis of cognition and mental well-being.
The brain’s ability to function is attributed to the variety of cell types found in its cortex, which is the outer layer involved in many advanced mental tasks. A primary focus in neuroscience is to comprehend how our genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms contribute to the brain’s organizational properties, as observed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Traditionally, scientists have analyzed brain organization by examining tissue samples from deceased individuals or by utilizing invasive methods in animals. These methods include studying tissue structure (histology), tracing neural pathways, measuring electrical activity (electrophysiology), or observing changes following damage to specific areas (lesion techniques).
With recent advancements in genetics and technology, researchers can now investigate the organization of brain cells in human tissue with greater accuracy. In this study, Rutgers researchers utilized newly developed post-mortem gene expression atlases, which illustrate how gene expression varies across different brain regions, to analyze how various cell types may align spatially with brain networks representative of the general population.
The researchers discovered that specific distributions of cell types correspond with particular networks in the brain’s cortex, both at the individual cell type level and across multivariate cellular profiles, or fingerprints.
“These results indicate a link between the functional setup of the human brain and its cellular foundations,” remarked senior author Avram Holmes, an associate professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a key faculty member of both the Rutgers Brain Health Institute and the Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research.
“This study has crucial implications for grasping the cellular aspects of brain functions in both healthy and diseased states,” Holmes added.
The research lays the groundwork for future investigations into how various cell types collaborate within brain networks, as well as how they might influence brain function in other models.
Future studies should aim to integrate the hierarchical nature of these diverse cell characteristics into their analyses and explore alternative models of in vivo brain function, according to Holmes.
