Brain's Nerves Found to Line Up Like a Grid
By Helen Shen of Nature magazine
The nerves in a human brain form a three-dimensional grid of criss-crossing fibers, say researchers who have mapped them.
The regular pattern creates a scaffold to guide brain development and support more complex and variable brain structures, says Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "The grid structure, by dint of its simplicity and symmetry under deformation, allows for continuous re-wiring," he says.
The grid is part of the brain's white matter: bundles of nerve fibers, or axons, that allow different brain regions to communicate and coordinate with one another. It was a surprise to find that these bundles form a regular network, rather than a jumbled mass, says Wedeen.
The researchers imaged cubes of the brain a couple of millimeters across in living humans and half a millimeter across in dead animals from four other primate species. They used a technique called diffusion spectrum magnetic resonance imaging, which traces the path of axons by analyzing the flow of water through the brain. The results are published in Science today.
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