UC Irvine Researchers Unveil Multiscale Spatial Atlas of Human Basal Ganglia, Highlighting Species-Specific Gene Gradients
Researchers at UC Irvine have published a new study in Cell revealing a multiscale spatial atlas of the human basal ganglia. This comprehensive atlas combines Stereo-seq and MERFISH+ technologies to map approximately 7.9 million cells from four human donors, identifying 60 distinct cell types. A significant finding is that 97.2% of genes exhibiting a dorsolateral-to-ventromedial expression gradient in the human striatum are enriched toward the ventromedial region, a stark contrast to the 73% observed in mice. The team profiled around 70,000 genes across 3.2 million cells, uncovering spatially organized molecular communities within key brain regions such as the caudate, putamen, nucleus accumbens, and globus pallidus. Beyond cell type mapping, the atlas details molecular gradients and patterns of striosome-matrix organization, highlighting both conserved and species-specific features across humans, macaques, marmosets, and mice. This research is part of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN).
