Artificial intelligence project could yield clues about autism Spectrum

Researchers have traced the paths of thousands of neurons in a tiny piece of mouse brain, creating the largest map of neuronal wiring to date. The atlas, published in March in Nature, shows not only how these neurons connect, but also how they function as the brain processes information1. The work is part of a massive effort, backed by more than 70 million in federal funding, to use the brain as a blueprint for intelligent machines. The findings could also offer clues about how the brain becomes wired during development and what happens when this wiring goes awry, says lead researcher R. Clay Reid, senior investigator of neural coding at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington. "In some way that no one has thought of yet, this will help [to advance our understanding of] autism," he says.