By Michelle Jaffee
It is a detailed view of the brain like never seen before.
In a significant technological leap, University of Florida researchers have created a powerful new computational and artificial intelligence tool that can generate a high-resolution 3D map of the brain in mice, allowing users to zoom in and out — from all angles, like a Google Earth map — and peer into the full set of molecules that produce energy for brain functions.
This new AI-driven tool, funded by research grants from the National Institutes of Health, brings scientists one step closer to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. It could open a new array of possibilities to discover targeted treatments.
Reporting today in the journal Nature Metabolism, a research team led by Ramon Sun, Ph.D., detailed how they developed their groundbreaking MetaVision3D tool using UF’s HiPerGator supercomputer. As a proof of principle, they generated a 3D interactive atlas of the brain in both normal mice and mouse models of Alzheimer’s and Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder. Sun’s lab has made its database and web server publicly accessible to support the growing field of scientists studying links between metabolism and the mind.
“Using our methodology, we can map thousands of molecules in the brain and precisely where they are located inside each brain region. It is unprecedented,” said Sun, director of the Center for Advanced Spatial Biomolecule Research and associate director for innovation of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute. “We couldn’t have done it without NIH funding. This funding fuels our efforts to uncover metabolic drivers of Alzheimer’s and pave the way for new interventions to prevent and treat this devastating disease.”
