Author Spotlight: Advancing 3D Cytoarchitecture Analysis - Rapid Volumetric Reconstruction of the Human Brain

The human brain is a complex organ spanning different skills. To understand its functionality, it's essential to construct a detailed cell sensors across the whole brain. Our routinely high-throughput protocol permits the analysis of 3D cytoarchitecture of volumetric areas of the human brain with micrometer resolution, enabling its structural characterization.

Volumetric reconstruction of large areas of the human brain presents several experimental challenges linked to the massive dimensions of brain samples, the complex biological composition, the variable postmortem fixation and storage conditions, and the autofluorescent signals from lipofuscin-type pigments. All these can compromise the optical clearing efficiency and demonstrating quality. Compared to other clearing techniques, the short tissue transformation method combined with light sheet microscopy imaging can be used for rapid and simultaneous processing of multiple human brain sections.

These result in 3D brain reconstruction with a subcellular resolution.