Sept. 16, 2022 – All day long, your brain cells are sending and receiving messages through electrical and chemical signals. These messages help you do things like move your muscles and use your senses – as you taste your food, feel the heat coming off a stove, or read the words on this page.
If we could better understand how those messages are sent and received, we’d gain powerful insights into the brain-body connection and shed light on what’s happening when those connections aren’t working – as with brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
To that end, neuroscientists at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles have built computer models of individual brain cells – the most complex models to date, they say. The models were created using high-performance computing and artificial Intelligence (AI), as described.In the journal Cell ReportsCapture the timing and shape of electrical signals brain cells fire called neurons.
Scientists have long sought to understand the inner workings, not only cognitively, but also genetically, biologically, and electrically.
Andrew Fielding Huxley, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and John Carew Eccles were among the most well-known early researchers. They won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine due to their discoveries on nerve cell membranes.
“Today is a unique moment when detailed, single-neuron data sets are available in large quantities and for many cells,” says study author, Costas Anastassiou, PhD, a research scientist in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai. “The size and speed of today’The internet allows us to explore [detailed] mechanisms at a single-cell level – for every cell.”
How can you model brain cell activity using a computer?
It turns out that the electrical pulses that neurons use to communicate with each other can be reproduced using computer code.
“We replicated the distinct voltage waveforms and time trajectories of these pulses using mathematical equations,” says Anastassiou. Anastassiou said that they then created computer models by using data from experiments with mice.
These experiments measure certain things in the cells – like their size, shape, and structure, or how they respond to changes. All these elements are combined in a cell model that can reveal their connections.
Computer models are able to reconcile two important pieces of information, the cellular makeup (building blocks that make up brain cells) and patterns that are observed during brain activity. With the computer’s help, links between the data sets become clear. This could help pave the way to discover what actually causes the brain to change, the researchers say – a crucial step when looking at disorders.
What Can Computers Tell us About the Human Brain?
One of the most exciting uses for brain cell models is to test theories about brain disorders that are difficult or impossible to make in the laboratory. The work can also lead to new insights into the brain, such as how brain cells differ from one another, their connections and differences, and the implications for a range of properties.
Computers and mathematics are telling stories about the brain, and Anastassiou says for him, the fascination comes from the simplicity of the outcome and the richness of their impacts.
“I have always been fascinated by the question of how mathematical equations represent living, computing, biological cells – particularly so for the brain, the epicenter of what makes us human,” he says.
