Shedding New Light on Human Brain Organization

Summary: A new map of the human brain reveals cells, receptors, and gene activity change along the same boundaries.

Source: Human Brain Project

Specific cellular, molecular and gene expression patterns in brain areas are linked to function, but their precise relationships remain largely unknown.

New findings by scientists at the Human Brain Project (HBP) shed light on these relationships and enable a more comprehensive understanding of human brain organisation.

The HBP researchers conducted a study that targeted three levels of cortical organisation: cytoarchitecture, neurotransmitter receptor architecture and neurotransmitter receptor gene expression.

The study elucidates principles of human brain organisation across the visual, auditory, somatosensory and motor functional systems, going beyond the simplified view of a ‘mosaic’ of areas forming the neocortex.

The results were published in the journal Neuroimage.

To reveal the different properties of functional systems, and how brain areas within a functional system differ with respect to the processing hierarchy – from primary to higher associative, the team analysed cytoarchitectonic and receptorarchitectonic data of the Julich Brain Atlas – a three-dimensional multimodal atlas of the human brain – and compared the data with transcriptomic data from the Allen Human Brain Atlas.

“Bridging the gaps between different levels of brain organisation is one of the biggest challenges in neuroscience today. In the Julich Brain Atlas we can do it systematically. It integrates the data and is an invaluable tool”, says Daniel Zachlod, first author of the study.

The researchers investigated the relationship of neurotransmitter receptor densities with their corresponding genes in 15 cytoarchitectonic areas of the visual, auditory, somatosensory and motor systems. They analysed differential gene expression within brain areas of each of those functional systems.

“We found that the receptor architecture and gene expression patterns within a functional system change in a systematic way, in correspondence to increasing complexity of information processing”, explains HBP Scientific Director Katrin Amunts, who is last author of the study.

This shows the brain with the different areas mapped
The analyzed areas: visual system (purple line), auditory (orange) and motor area (dark grey), and the somatosensory area (green line). Credit: Human Brain Project

The study demonstrates a method to unravel structure-function relationships by using the multilevel Julich-Brain Atlas to bridge the different scales of brain organisation.

Previous studies had already indicated the relevancy of receptor gene expression for the functional differentiation of the brain in rodents, but data on the human brain is much sparser and more fragmented.

The authors of the present study argue that it is mandatory to extend such studies to the human brain, in order to better understand the healthy brain, as well as pathogenesis of brain disorders with alterations in neurotransmitter systems.

About this brain mapping research news

Author: Helen Mendes
Source: Human Brain Project
Contact: Helen Mendes – Human Brain Project
Image: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.
Combined analysis of cytoarchitectonic, molecular and transcriptomic patterns reveal differences in brain organization across human functional brain systems” by Daniel Zachlod et al. NeuroImage


Abstract

Combined analysis of cytoarchitectonic, molecular and transcriptomic patterns reveal differences in brain organization across human functional brain systems

Brain areas show specific cellular, molecular, and gene expression patterns that are linked to function, but their precise relationships are largely unknown.

To unravel these structure-function relationships, a combined analysis of 53 neurotransmitter receptor genes, receptor densities of six transmitter systems and cytoarchitectonic data of the auditory, somatosensory, visual, motor systems was conducted.

Besides covariation of areal gene expression with receptor density, the study reveals specific gene expression patterns in functional systems, which are most prominent for the inhibitory GABAA and excitatory glutamatergic NMDA receptors.

Furthermore, gene expression-receptor relationships changed in a systematic manner according to information flow from primary to higher associative areas.

The findings shed new light on the relationship of anatomical, functional, and molecular and transcriptomic principles of cortical segregation towards a more comprehensive understanding of human brain organization.

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  1. It’s becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first.

    The thing I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I’ve encountered is anywhere near as convincing.

    I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there’s lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.

    My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar’s lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman’s roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461

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