This article was first published in the May 2016 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Feel like stepping inside the brain of a rat? This virtual-reality reconstruction allows you to do just that.
The 3D brain is projected by 12 eight-megapixel streams across the six walls of a three-metre-sided cubic room known as the CAVE (cave automatic virtual environment). It was developed by the visualisation lab at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. "Through our application of electron microscopy, we are able to develop new ways of analysing microscopic cellular structures of the brain," explains Corrado Calì, a lead researcher on the project.
The above image is of the hippocampus, an area involved in memory formation. KAUST scientists process extracted brain tissue through ilastik, a program created by Fred Hamprecht and his team at the Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing in Germany, which is mainly directed toward interactive image classification, segmentation and analysis.
Once the hippocampus has been digitally logged, its data is fed into 3D-modelling program Blender, with NeuroMorph plug-ins. This converts it into something a bit more compelling - a visualisation which grants the ability to dive deep into the brain.
"We can walk into a model containing neuronal processes and study the spatial distribution of glycogen granules [stored glucose energy source in the brain], for example," says Cali. "The use of CAVE was key to the observation of a non-random distribution of glycogen. This led us to develop tools for measuring glycogen clustering and proximity to other subcellular features."
And if you don't have access to a CAVE? KAUST has created an Oculus Rift version, so other scientists can have rats on the brain.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
