2024 Seed Grant
Aaron T. Kuan, Ph.D.
Yale School of Medicine
The connectivity between neurons is a “wiring diagram” of the brain. Obtaining such a wiring diagram would help understand how the brain works, as well as what can go wrong in psychiatric diseases. Because wires in the brain are so small, brain mapping can currently only be achieved with electron microscopy, which needs complicated and expensive equipment. In this project, we developing a technique which physically expands brain samples to allow brain wiring to be mapped with light microscopy microscopy. This new approach will greatly accelerate our quest to map the brain, and also allow us to add crucial information about the distribution of specific proteins within brain circuits, which is especially important for studying neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease.
