2020 in research images

Feast your eyes on glowing glia and organoids; high-resolution, digital renditions of mouse brains; fluorescent beads passing through zebrafish guts and more.

By Spectrum

23 December 2020 | 2 min read

This article is more than five years old.

Neuroscience—and science in general—is constantly evolving, so older articles may contain information or theories that have been reevaluated since their original publication date.

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Stay current with the latest advancements in autism research.

Fifteen different drugs commonly prescribed to people with autism created unique behavioral signatures in mice.

Young zebrafish have transparent skin, which allows researchers to track the movements of glowing beads of excrement through their gut.

Gut neurons and glia (red, green) are fragile and interwoven with other cells (blue) in the colon, making them tricky to isolate.

Precise pictures: This top-down view of the mouse brain is part of a new atlas that provides the most detailed 3D views to date. Researchers can use the reference to combine, analyze and share various types of mouse brain data.

Courtesy of the Allen Institute for Brain Science

Bridging the gap: SYNGAP1 protein is located mostly at synapses, the junctions between neurons, (green) where it helps brain cells pass along chemical signals. People with a mutated copy of SYNGAP1 often have autism, as well as intellectual disability, epilepsy and an impaired gait.

Courtesy of Rick Huganir

Cell by cell: A new technique called Perturb-seq makes it possible to screen for multiple autism-gene mutations (red), one by one, in living mice and to analyze their effects in individual cells.

Courtesy of Xin Jin / Harvard University

Drug targets: Fifteen different drugs commonly prescribed to people with autism created unique behavioral signatures in mice.

Courtesy of Alex Wiltschko / Harvard University

Electric organoid: Neurons derived from people with 22q11.2 syndrome are hyperexcitable and show calcium-signaling deficits.

Courtesy of Pasca lab

Short circuit: Stimulation of neurons that extend from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala (pink) causes social problems in mice.

Courtesy of Wen-Chin Huang / Page Laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute

View to the loo: Young zebrafish have transparent skin, which allows researchers to track the movements of glowing beads through their gut.

Courtesy of Julia Dallman

Neuron network: Gut neurons and glia (red, green) are fragile and interwoven with other cells (blue) in the colon, making them tricky to isolate.

Courtesy of E. Drokhlyansky, C. Smillie, N. Van Wittenberghe, and L. Caplan / Broad Institute

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