“How can we begin to understand the way the brain works? The same way we begin to understand a city: by making a map. In this visually stunning talk, Allan Jones shows how his team is mapping which genes are turned on in each tiny region, and how it all connects up.”

Filmed July 2011 at TED Global 2011 Uploaded to YouTube on November 10, 2011 by TED

“Hongkui Zeng, senior director at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, discusses our unique Connectivity Atlas that quantitatively shows how regions of the mouse brain are connected.”

Published on April 9, 2014 by Allen Institute for Brain Science

Hongkui Zeng, PhD

Senior Director, Research Science Allen Institute Research and Development

Zeng explores novel technologies and develop high-throughput paradigms for generating large-scale, public datasets and tools to fuel neuroscience discovery. Zeng  has broad scientific experience and a keen interest in using a combined molecular, genetic and physiological approach to unravel mechanisms of brain circuitry and potential approaches for treating brain diseases.

“Allen Cell Types Database: Understanding the fundamental building blocks of the brain”

The Allen Institute for Brain Science is taking the first major scientific step to create a searchable standards database for the brain with the launch of the Allen Cell Types Database.

Published on May 14, 2015 by Allen Institute for Brain Science

“This movie displays 21 mapping experiments from the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas: a tool to investigate how different regions of the brain are connected. The density of axons at each voxel (dot) are displayed as overlapping circles color-coded by the area of the brain from which the axons are projecting. This animation shows how projections from different regions of the cortex divide the thalamus and striatum into distinct domains. The Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas is available to everyone online at www.brain-map.org.“

Published on April 9, 2014 by Allen Institute for Brain Science

“This video shows a composite of 80 injection sites of a viral tracer in the cortex (round spheres) and their major projections into the thalamus. We can clearly see that the spatial pattern of the injections is conserved in the thalamus. This kind of information was only previously available in piecemeal form, but with the comprehensive, standardized data in the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, we can reproducibly measure and visualize this topography.”

Published on February 27, 2014 by Allen Institute for Brain Science

Fueling Discovery: BrainSpan Atlas of the Developing Human Brain

“Ed Lein, an investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, discusses how we are creating the BrainSpan Atlas of the Developing Human Brain and learning about how genes are used differently in the developing brain.”

Published on April 9, 2014 by Allen Institute for Brain Science