Machine learning analysis of whole mouse brain vasculature
- Journal:
- Nature Methods
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s41592-020-0792-1
- Affiliations:
- 9
- Authors:
- 12
Research Highlight
AI offers window into brain vasculature
© Callista Images/Getty
A technique that pairs artificial intelligence with methods for making tissues transparent could help scientists better understand how abnormalities in the brain’s blood flow contribute to stroke, dementia and other neurological conditions.
Changes to the structure of the blood vessels in the brain are indicative of many neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and brain injuries.
Now, a team co-led by researchers at the Technical University of Munich has used special dyes and chemical stains to make mouse brains see through. They then applied high-resolution imaging, followed by deep-learning approaches, to analyse all the brain’s blood vessels down to the micrometre scale.
In this way, they created a reference map of brain vasculature in three standard lab strains of mice, which all showed slight differences in their vessel architectures.
References
- Nature Methods 17, 442–449 (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41592-020-0792-1