Human brains have around 86 billion neurons connected via an estimated 100 trillion synapses. It becomes a mammoth challenge to comprehend the minutiae of how those cells function, let alone how they combine to form our sensory systems, our behaviour, and our consciousness. Thereby making neurological discoveries an advancing field in science. Neuroscience has played a critical part in the history of artificial intelligence. These advancements are credited to a variety of variables, including the deployment of novel statistical techniques and improved computer processing power.
Time and again, we come across new neurological discoveries that leaves us speechless; only recently, Google, in collaboration with the Lichtman laboratory at Harvard University and Connectomics, is releasing the “H01” dataset accompanied by a companion paper that contains a 1.4-petabyte sample of human brain tissue. The human cortex H01 sample was sequentially sectioned, scanned using an electron microscope at a nanoscale resolution, digitally reassembled, and researched for preliminary ideas on the anatomy of the human cortex. The dataset contains approximately one cubic millimetre of imaging data, including tens of thousands of rebuilt neurons, millions of neuron fragments, 183 million annotated synapses, 100 proofread cells, and numerous more subcellular annotations and structures.