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Nature 425, 907-908 (30 October 2003) | doi:10.1038/425907a

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Molecular neuroscience: BAC-to-BAC images of the brain

Huda Y. Zoghbi1

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A large-scale effort to uncover the gene-expression profiles of individual neurons and create a demographic atlas of the brain is under way. First data from this project are revealing new information about neuronal development.

For centuries, avenues to understanding the nervous system were confined to post-mortem anatomical studies and clinical portraits of the brain in disease states. The first approach has produced a fairly good map of the brain; the second, a catalogue of behaviours that we can trace with a reasonable amount of accuracy to distinct brain regions.

  1. Huda Y. Zoghbi is in the Departments of Neuroscience, and Molecular and Human Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
    Email: hzoghbi@bcm.tmc.edu