NIH Workshop Report Taming the Brain's Complexity

ers are encouraged to read this document carefully. It provides a wealth of information that may prove invaluable as future research endeavors are planned. Because the report on the Web provides a comprehensive and eloquent summary of the workshop, here Palo Alto, California 94304 I will briefly mention just a few of the highlights. First, like me, you may not be aware of several existing NIH-In the mammalian brain, trillions of neurons are con-funded large-scale efforts to accelerate the develop-nected by zillions of synapses. This bewildering array ment of a Molecular Brain Map. These may already be of complicated local circuits is influenced by a multitude able to provide you with invaluable tools and resources. of diffuse modulatory systems. How in the world are we At the University of Iowa, Dr. Bento Soares is attempting to make sense of the mind-boggling complexity of the to identify all transcripts (cDNAs/ESTs) in the developing mammalian brain? Clearly, this is a daunting but critically and adult mouse brain and has so far identified over important question, a fact recognized by several NIH 30,000 novel ESTs (http://brainEST.eng.uiowa.edu; http:// institutes (NIDA, NIMH, NINDS) who jointly sponsored trans.nih.gov/bmap/resources/resources.htm). This will a recent workshop (January 2002) to address this topic. prove invaluable, not only in its own right, but also for A main goal of the meeting was to begin to work out how the other approaches listed below. Two different gene best to take advantage of the explosion of molecular expression mapping efforts are taking place under the information and tools now at neuroscientists' disposal. auspices of NINDS's GenSat (high-throughput analysis Thousands of genes expressed in the brain have been of gene expression patterns in the CNS) project. At Bay-identified, and we are beginning to map their detailed lor (and the Max Planck Institute), Dr. Gregor Eichle is distributions in specific cells and circuits. We also have mapping gene expression patterns in adult and embry-rapidly evolving tools that allow the manipulation of onic brain, using high-throughput in situ hybridization. genes and their products in the brain with great temporal The goal is to map over 1000 genes per year, an ambi-and spatial precision. The specific workshop tasks in-tious but achievable task. As an electrophysiologist, an cluded thinking about how best to collect and organize effort that I found particularly exciting is being led by molecular neuroanatomy information so that it is of optimal use to the …