Scientists publish detailed atlas of basal ganglia brain region

A global team of scientists has published the world's most detailed atlas of the basal ganglia, a brain region linked to neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions from Parkinson's and Huntington's disease to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and addiction.

The atlas

The atlas comprises 25.5 million brain cells from humans, macaques and marmosets. It contains 21 million cells from the brains of six humans, three million cells from three rhesus and cynomolgus macaques, and 1.5 million cells from two marmosets. The researchers also used data from previously published maps of the whole mouse brain.

The work is described in a collection of 26 papers published in Cell, Cell Reports, Cell Reports Methods, Cell Systems, Cell Genomics and Neuron. The atlas is a collaboration between hundreds of scientists in nine countries and is part of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN), a US$500-million project launched in 2022 by the US National Institutes of Health aimed at creating reference maps of mammalian brains.

Key findings

By comparing the basal ganglia between primate species, the researchers identified 61 cell types in humans, macaques and marmosets that have been conserved over 76 million years. The team analysed brain tissue samples from different developmental stages across the lifespan of the species, combining information about gene expression, DNA modifications that control gene regulation, recordings of electrical activity, and how DNA is folded inside cell nuclei.

One study examined 1.1 million cells in the striatum, the basal ganglia's largest structure, from 19 deceased human donors. The researchers identified six zones in the human and macaque striatum with distinct molecular signatures, each containing distinct populations of neurons and glial cells. "The cells in these zones all look the same under the microscope, but have very strong transcriptional differences and are strikingly consistent from person to person," said co-author Evan Macosko, a neurobiologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a press release from the institute.

Another study analysed nearly four million cells in the striatum and prefrontal cortex from 178 deceased adult donors between the ages of 27 and over 90. The researchers found that the cellular make-up of the two brain regions varied between people, particularly for non-neuronal cells known as glial cells.

Expert comment

"It's a massive dictionary that we needed in the field," says Ana Muñoz-Manchado, a neuroscientist at the University of Cádiz in Spain, who studies the basal ganglia in neurodegenerative disorders.

Michael Hawrylycz, a bioinformatician at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, who took part in the project, said the work is "essentially a scaffold on which we can now fairly readily complete the rest of the brain."

Why it matters

The basal ganglia process motor, cognitive, mood and decision-making information and are linked to conditions including Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and addiction. The atlas provides a cross-species reference database to help understand these conditions and how some brain cells change with age.

---

Sources

• nature.com: Massive atlas of brain region linked to a host of diseases is the most detailed yet | Nature

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.