Toward a human adult brain cell atlas with single-cell technologies

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Abstract Human brain is an exceedingly complex network of spatially organized and functionally connected neurons imbedded in glia. In surpasses the mouse brain by three orders of magnitude in terms of sheer numbers of cells, and likely has a more complex organization structure relevant to human-specific cognitive functions. Defining a complete cell atlas of the human brain, including a full catalog of all cell types (i.e. all parts) and their spatial distribution, is a critical step towards understanding the human cognitive machine. In this project we will greatly expand our previous efforts towards building a complete and spatially resolved cell atlas of the human whole brain, using a combination of three novel technologies for scalable single-cell sequencing and in situ imaging. Novel computational approaches will also be developed for integration and analysis of data at these larger scales. We will systematically apply these methods to MRI-scanned human whole brains to produce reference cell maps for female and male brains, and construct a spatial multi-omic map of the human adult brain.