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of mice and men (or from ABA to ABBA)

Mice and men share about 90% of the genome. Therefore we are confident that one can safely assume to search one’s own brain when browsing the Allen Brain Atlas.

In a mostly automated process the Allen institute sliced and photographed the brains of mice and analysed the expression of genes in the brain. The process started in 2003 and the result is a fully searchable atlas for genes in the brain with a neat 3d interface. Of course this is not the only mouse brain atlas there are others as well (not with the gene expression feature though) and if you happen to have your own mouse brain photos you can even find a tutorial how to make your own atlas.

We rencently pointed out that (brain!) size can be hindering. this together with the above mentioned 90% somewhat places us in a neck-and-neck race with the mice.
But of course we invented the pop music – not the mice. So you can tell whose brain works better (but then we also invented the brain mouse …)

posted by timh on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 12:26 pm // 3d, bio. // RSS 2.0 feed skip to the end and leave a response // pinging is currently not allowed //

2 Responses to “of mice and men (or from ABA to ABBA)”

  1. John Says:
    February 6th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

    Paul Allen Brain Atlas Misconceptions:
    http://braintechsci.blogspot.com/2006/10/paul-allen-brain-atlas-misconceptions.html
    http://braintechsci.blogspot.com/2006/10/paul-allen-brain-atlas-misconceptions.html

  2. timh Says:
    February 7th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    well, I can not judge the scientific use of the allen brain atlas or its advantages or disadvantages compared to other maps, but I thought comparing one’s own brain with slices of a couple of mouse brains directly just because we are “gengetic neighbours” was sufficiently ridiculous to be recognized as a joke.
    The main reason I posted this was of course that I found the atlas having a quite usable 3d interface

    timh

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