Jaw-dropping 3D scan shows a section of a MOUSE BRAIN the size of a grain of sand as no one has EVER seen it before

A ground-breaking study shows the most detailed map of a mammal's brain to date. The 3D blueprints display more than two miles of neural wiring, close to 100,000 nerve cells, and about 500 million synapses -- all contained in a piece of mouse brain no bigger than a grain of sand. Dr Clay Reid of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle said: 'Inside this tiny speck is an exquisite forest of connections, filled with rules we're only beginning to understand.' The sample comes from an outer part of the brain - known as the cortex - a region which is involved in sight, the Times reports. Dr Forrest Collman, of the same Institute, said: 'By studying how the cortex functions in the mouse brain, we can generate better ideas and hypotheses about how our own brains work.'