AI Learns a New Trick: Measuring Brain Cells

In 2007, I spent the summer before my junior year of college removing little bits of brain from rats, growing them in tiny plastic dishes, and poring over the neurons in each one. For three months, I spent three or four hours a day, five or six days a week, in a small room, peering through a microscope and snapping photos of the brain cells. The room was pitch black, save for the green glow emitted by the neurons. I was looking to see whether a certain growth factor could protect the neurons from degenerating the way they do in patients with Parkinson's disease. This kind of work, which is common in neuroscience research, requires time and a borderline pathological attention to detail.