Mouse brain explained

The mouse brain refers to the brain of Mus musculus. Various brain atlases exist.

For reasons of reproducibility, genetically characterized, stable strains like C57BL/6 were chosen to produce high-resolution images and databases.^[1] Well known online resources include:

• Allen Brain Atlas^[2]
• Mouse Brain Library^[3]
• High resolution mouse brain atlas
• BrainMaps
  • High-Resolution Brain Maps and Brain Atlases of Mus musculus

Despite superficial differences, especially in size and weight, the mouse brain and its function can serve as a powerful animal model for study of human brain diseases or mental disorders (see e.g. Reeler, Chakragati mouse). This is because the genes responsible for building and operating both mouse and human brain are 90% identical.^[4] Transgenic mouse lines also allow neuroscientists to specifically target the labeling of certain cell types to probe the neural basis of fundamental processes.^{[5] [6]}

Anatomy

The cerebral cortex of a mouse has around 8–14 million neurons while in those humans there are more than 10–15 billion.^{[7] [8]} The olfactory bulb volume takes about 2% of the mouse brain by volume in contrast to about 0.01% of the human brain.^{[9] [10]}

Development

• Mouse brain development timeline

See also

• List of animals by number of neurons

Notes and References

1. MacKenzie-Graham . Allan . Jones . Eagle S. . Shattuck . David W. . Dinov . Ivo D. . Bota . Mihail . Toga . Arthur W. . The Informatics of a C57BL/6J Mouse Brain Atlas . Neuroinformatics . Springer Nature . 1 . 4 . 2003 . 1539-2791 . 15043223. 10.1385/ni:1:4:397 . 397–410 . 81057 .
2. Web site: ISH Data :: Allen Brain Atlas: Mouse Brain . ISH Data . . 2019-02-07.
3. Web site: Search the library . The Mouse Brain Library . 2003-06-05 . . 2019-02-07.
4. The Brain: What the Mouse Brain Tells Us. Time. 19 January 2007. Park. Alice.
5. Gordon. J. W.. Scangos. G. A.. Plotkin. D. J.. Barbosa. J. A.. Ruddle. F. H.. 1980-12-01. Genetic transformation of mouse embryos by microinjection of purified DNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. en. 77. 12. 7380–7384. 10.1073/pnas.77.12.7380. 0027-8424. 350507. 6261253. 1980PNAS...77.7380G . free .
6. Haruyama. Naoto. Cho. Andrew. Kulkarni. Ashok B.. 2009. Overview: Engineering Transgenic Constructs and Mice. Current Protocols in Cell Biology. en. 42. 1. 19.10.1–19.10.9. 10.1002/0471143030.cb1910s42. 1934-2616. 2743315. 19283728.
7. Web site: Brain size and intelligence- why a human is smarter than a mouse . DNALC Blogs « . 2012-11-13 . . 2019-02-07.
8. Herculano-Houzel . Suzana . Catania . Kenneth . Manger . Paul R. . Kaas . Jon H. . Mammalian Brains Are Made of These: A Dataset of the Numbers and Densities of Neuronal and Nonneuronal Cells in the Brain of Glires, Primates, Scandentia, Eulipotyphlans, Afrotherians and Artiodactyls, and Their Relationship with Body Mass . Brain, Behavior and Evolution . S. Karger AG . 86 . 3–4 . 2015 . 0006-8977 . 10.1159/000437413 . 145–163 . 26418466. free .
9. McGann . John P. . Poor human olfaction is a 19th-century myth . Science . American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) . 356 . 6338 . 2017-05-11 . 0036-8075 . 10.1126/science.aam7263 . eaam7263 . 5512720 . 28495701 .
10. Web site: Brain Facts and Figures . faculty.washington.edu . . 2019-02-07.