近日，东南大学教授彭汉川及其课题组揭示了基于树突微环境的小鼠脑图谱。相关论文发表在2025年11月24日出版的《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

在这里，该课题组展示了绘制树突图，这些树突被它们的局部邻居增强了，该课题组称之为微环境，揭示了一个更细粒度的大脑组织。该课题组人员分析了111个无主题大脑中超过10万个神经元的树突模式，发现神经元分组成不同的微环境，这些微环境细分了已知的大脑区域，与标准艾伦共同坐标框架相比，可识别区域的数量几乎增加了一倍。值得注意的是，具有相似局部树突排列的海马神经元倾向于与相似的远处目标形成远程连接，这表明局部结构可以预测全球连接。这个微环境图谱通过揭示先前隐藏的细分和与功能差异相一致的相关性来补充现有的研究，为大脑结构与功能的关系提供了新的见解。作者开发了一个单主题脑图谱，主题为101,136个神经元的局部树突形态模式。这种表征不仅提高了解剖精度，而且揭示了局部树突结构和远程神经元投射之间的联系。

据悉，脑地图集绘制神经组织的空间组织，并作为解剖学参考。目前的无主题脑图谱主要基于细胞密度模式来定义区域，但忽略了神经元如何扩展其分支（树突）以形成局部网络。

附：英文原文

Title: A mouse brain atlas based on dendritic microenvironments

Author: Liu, Yufeng, Zhao, Sujun, Yun, Zhixi, Xiong, Feng, Peng, Hanchuan

Issue&Volume: 2025-11-24

Abstract: Brain atlases map the spatial organization of neural tissue and serve as anatomical references. Current mouse brain atlases define regions based primarily on cell density patterns but overlook how neurons extend their branches (dendrites) to form local networks. Here we show that mapping dendrites enhanced by their local neighborhoods—which we call microenvironments—reveals a finer-grained brain organization. We analyzed dendrite patterns from more than 100,000 neurons across 111 mouse brains and discovered that neurons group into distinct microenvironments that subdivide known brain regions, nearly doubling the number of identifiable areas compared with the standard Allen Common Coordinate Framework. Remarkably, hippocampal neurons with similar local dendrite arrangements tend to form long-range connections to similar distant targets, suggesting that local structure predicts global connectivity. This microenvironment atlas complements existing resources by revealing previously hidden subdivisions and correlations that align with functional differences, offering new insights into how brain structure relates to function. The authors developed a mouse brain atlas using local dendritic morphological patterns from 101,136 neurons. This representation not only improves anatomical precision but also uncovers associations between local dendritic architecture and long-range neuronal projections.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-02119-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02119-6