Lin, M.K. et al. eLife 8, e40042 (2019)

The marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is an increasingly popular animal model for neuroscience research. The animals are smaller and easier to work with than macaques, but more closely related to humans than rodents. Efforts to produce a complete brain connectivity map for the marmoset, akin to what’s available for mouse, are underway. Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory recently published details of their high-throughput neurohistological pipeline.

They establish a grid-based tracer injection strategy to map mesoscale neural connections in the marmoset brain. Sections of brain are then cryo-stained, and a computer program processes 3D images from the tracer, staining, and in vivo MRI data. Completed images so far can be viewed at marmoset.brainarchitecture.org. A map of the entire brain is expected by 2024.