Scientists in Florida used the help of artificial intelligence and virtual reality to create 3D visualizations of the mouse brain, which simulates the human brain.

Mapping the brain using the above new technological means, according to scientists, contributes to the better study and by extension understanding of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and autism or other similar brain disorders.

Following the path of neurons to answers

A team at a University of South Florida (USF) lab used virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence to create a high-definition visual timeline of the journey of billions of neurons in the brains of newborn mice.

Advanced imaging technology provides complex 3D renderings of the chronology of early brain formation, which are run through existing artificial intelligence language models and analyzed for changes. Rodents have similar types of neurons and connections to humans.

The science focuses on the calyx of Held, the largest nerve terminal in the brain of all mammals, which processes sound. Hearing impairment has been widely recognized as the source of symptoms in disorders including autism that commonly lead to social and cognitive impairment.

“The information can help us understand severe developmental disorders that occur in the brain when it doesn’t develop properly at an early stage,” said George Spyrou, a professor of medical engineering at USF, who compared the images to a road map.

3D map of the terminal neural crest of a mouse brain Source: University of Florida

“It’s like having a route from, say, New York to Chicago, and someone bypasses Cleveland. You can figure out why there was a ramp where it shouldn’t be, go back and fix it.

“Between the fourth and fifth months of pregnancy, the number of neurons in the nervous system explodes almost exponentially, and synapses, that is, connections between nerve cells, are formed at a rate of about one million per second, an incredible number when you consider that there are almost 100 tons of synapses in an adult human brain’.