![]() Maybe new crowd-sourced efforts such as the Human Connectome Project eyewire game will eventually provide us with a more accurate number that doesn’t rely so heavily on estimation. But you notice that to do this, the researchers are still using the extrapolation method. The great advantage of this method is that unlike counting the number of neurons in one part of the brain and then extrapolating from that, it gets over the problem that different brain regions may have more or less densely packed neurons. You then take a sample of the soup, count the number of cell nuclei belonging to neurons (as opposed to other cells in the brain such as glia) and then scale up to get the overall number. ![]() It also includes the cytoplasm, which is the fluid that houses the majority of cellular material within the neuron. The nucleus contains our genetic information. 1 The Cell Body The cell body of neuron contains the nucleus. The method involves dissolving the cell membranes of cells within the brain and creating a homogeneous mixture of the whole lot. Most neurons have three parts: a cell body, an axon, and dendrites. The outer portion contains neurons, and the inner area communicates with the cerebral cortex. Like the cerebral cortex, it has two hemispheres. The new method that gives us the 86 billion figure is… interesting. The cerebellum (little brain) is a fist-sized portion of the brain located at the back of the head, below the temporal and occipital lobes and above the brainstem. But you’re introducing two variables for your guess here! Not very accurate. ![]() ![]() Using this method, you estimate what proportion of neurons get stained, count the number in some patch of brain, then extrapolate. ![]()
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