In neuroscience, there are many efforts underway to map the brain. Some of the technologies are high-tech and emerging, while others are older classics. There are indeed many ways possible approaches, and many animals to map. From invertebrates with a few hundred neurons to mice with tens of millions, complexity varies. Some projects are looking at small scales; others, larger networks. But maps—and catalogues, atlases, and databases—are growing, providing researchers with new and ever-larger resources to guide them as they seek to better understand the brain and how it functions in health and disease.

See Neff

The zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a model organism used for many research questions. They reproduce quickly and in large numbers, as larvae they are optically clear, and there are well-established techniques to work with the fish and to create genetic models of a variety of different conditions with human relevance. Many researchers use them as an alternative to mammalian models to study health and disease. In other applications, zebrafish are helping research go from ‘tank to bedside’ for personalized medicine. Zebrafish make several appearances in the issue this month, including a recap of the recent Zebrafish Infection and Immunity meeting.

See Torraca et al.

Alzheimer’s disease is a growing burden that has been studied for years without clinical success. Long thought of as a somewhat monolithic neurodegenerative disorder, growing patient data suggests otherwise: every Alzheimer’s patient might be different. To better understand Alzheimer’s disease and identify how it can be treated—or prevented from developing in the first place—preclinical researchers are taking advantage of a variety of different animal models.

See Neff

Recognize those silhouettes? On the cover this month you’ll find three perhaps less familiar fishes: a cave-dwelling Mexican tetra, an Antarctic icefish, and an Atlantic killifish. Each has adapted to unique environments and developed unique phenotypes along the way that suit the fishes just fine but if found in people could be called pathological. The researchers working with these far-flung fishes think understanding their phenotypes could yield new insight into human health and disease.

See Kling

Caenorhabditis elegans has long been a model organism of choice for many. The transparent worm is small, relatively easy to culture and manipulate in the lab, and its biology has been well documented over the years. Technological advances are now upping the throughput possible for work with the worm, and deep phenotyping approaches with large cohorts are helping researchers better understand how different phenotypes in C. elegans come to be.

See Patel et al.

The C57BL/6 mouse has long been a popular choice in preclinical research. But ‘Black 6’ mice are not all the same–substrains maintained by different mouse providers have subtle genetics differences, the result of genetic drift over time as populations are bred in isolation. Those differences between substrains of C57BL/6 mice can have important implications for research outcomes that are increasingly being recognized and systematically evaluated.

See Johanna Åhlgren and Vootele Voikar

A novel mouse model can be a valuable asset to the institution that developed it. Understanding the various distribution agreements available can help developers protect their intellectual property (IP) while still getting their new mouse out to others to use. That’s more important than ever as technological advances in making new models change the IP landscape.

See Weintraub

Assembling a genome is not unlike assembling a puzzle. As sequencing technologies continue to advance, genomic puzzles are becoming easier to put together. That’s facilitating the sequencing of many different animal species, some already common to the lab and others much more novel.

See Eisenstein

The pig is poised to take its place in the preclinical pipeline as a large animal option for cancer research. With anatomical, physiological, and genetic similarities to humans, the pig could soon be a big help in bridging the gap between mouse and man.

See Neff

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that is the result of dysregulated host responses to systemic infections. It remains difficult to treat, aside from the administration of early antibiotics and fluids. Nonhuman primates, like the baboon pictured, are important preclinical models of sepsis that can be more translationally relevant than rodents, providing researchers unique opportunities for understanding the condition and advancing potential therapies to the clinic.

See Chen et al.

The flamboyant cuttlefish, Metasepia pfefferi is one of a handful of cephalopod species that the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA is attempting to cultivate and establish as a model organism for researchers.

See Neff