MAPPING THE BRAIN

September 2006 marked a major mile stone for our noggins,with completion of the Allen Brain Atlas,the first gene map of the brain.It all started in 2002,when billionaire philanthropist Paul Allen,co-founder of Microsoft,gathered some of the world's top scientists and charged them with finding an innovative new way to accelerate our understanding of the brain.From that he committed $100 million and established the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seatle.Uaing custom-built robotics and software,60 full time researchers teated 250,000 preserved slices of mouse brain,which resembles the human one enough that most discoveries would also hold true for us .They generated a volume of raw data that revealedwhere in the brain each of the mouse's 21,000 genes,producing a unique roster of proteins that enables each cell to do it's job- storing memory,directing movement or some other task.) The map revealed that about 80 percent of the body's genes are turned on in the brain-more than anyone had expected.That means if pharma companies are not careful,drugs targeted to other organs could have unwanted side effects in the brain.The map also uncovered evidence that could help reveal what goes wrong in complicated brain disorders such as schizophrenia and autism.the result is a 3-D virtual mouse brain atlas(brain-map.org)that does for neuroscientist what a survey map pinpointing gold deposits does for miners:It lets them quickly get to where the action is and start diging,says David Avderson,PhD,a professor of biology at California Institute and a project advisor.