November 15, 2012 (Vol. 32, No. 20)
URL:
http://www.mouseconnectome.org
Rating:
Strong Points: Great image visualization tool, nicely organized
Weak Points: Nothing major
Summary:
It remains one of the (many) great mysteries of neuroscience: how are different brain regions connected to one another? While individual studies have attempted to address this within particular contexts, the Mouse Connectome Project (MCP) at the University of California, Los Angeles has taken on the daunting task of systematically creating a 3D connectome for the mouse brain. The project’s website is already a treasure trove of beautiful images, even though the MCP is only just getting started. Visitors to the site will especially have fun exploring the images with iConnectome, the interactive visualization tool that allows the user to toggle the transparency of individual channels and also provides an option to overlay the images onto a mouse brain atlas for identification of individual brain areas. Overall, the site is beautifully designed and simple to navigate—it’s easy to lose oneself in the data!
