Allen脑科学研究所的科学家们通过分析大脑中大约1000个基因表达，发现了人类和小鼠大脑区域之间的相似之处和差异。相关研究成果在线发表在Cell杂志上。
这项研究揭示了人类个体之间的相似程度高。在三个特定区域的研究显示近1000个基因中只有5％在人与人之间有表达差异。此外，通过Allen老鼠大脑图谱数据集的比较，发现人类和小鼠之间有很大的一致性，人类视觉皮层与老鼠有79％的基因表达是相似的。
研究中的几项发现指出了人类和小鼠之间的差异和相似之处。由于老鼠是研究人类大脑功能和疾病中最常见的动物模型，了解老鼠为什么能用来研究人类大脑功能和疾病是很关键的。
据这项研究称，只有21％的基因表达在人类和老鼠之间的视觉皮层表现出差异性，但这些差异的性质可能会提示我们为什么我们人类是独特的。
到目前为止，其他研究人类基因表达的研究只关注于大脑的部分区域或选择没有具体解剖信息的基因组。人类大脑数据集以及Allen小鼠脑地图集公布的研究数百表明：高分辨率、细胞层次的基因表达谱研究有助于科学家了解大量有关的基因是如何影响细胞类型、神经回路和最终脑功能的。（生物谷：Bioon.com）
doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.02.052
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Large-Scale Cellular-Resolution Gene Profiling in Human Neocortex Reveals Species-Specific Molecular Signatures
Hongkui Zeng, Elaine H. Shen, John G. Hohmann, Seung Wook Oh, Amy Bernard, Joshua J. Royall, Katie J. Glattfelder, Susan M. Sunkin, John A. Morris, Angela L. Guillozet-Bongaarts, Kimberly A. Smith, Amanda J. Ebbert, Beryl Swanson, Leonard Kuan, Damon T. Page, Caroline C. Overly, Ed S. Lein, Michael J. Hawrylycz, Patrick R. Hof, Thomas M. Hyde, Joel E. Kleinman, Allan R. Jones
Although there have been major advances in elucidating the functional biology of the human brain, relatively little is known of its cellular and molecular organization. Here we report a large-scale characterization of the expression of 1,000 genes important for neural functions by in situ hybridization at a cellular resolution in visual and temporal cortices of adult human brains. These data reveal diverse gene expression patterns and remarkable conservation of each individual gene's expression among individuals (95%), cortical areas (84%), and between human and mouse (79%). A small but substantial number of genes (21%) exhibited species-differential expression. Distinct molecular signatures, comprised of genes both common between species and unique to each, were identified for each major cortical cell type. The data suggest that gene expression profile changes may contribute to differential cortical function across species, and in particular, a shift from corticosubcortical to more predominant corticocortical communications in the human brain.
