Our first fully OBI-authored paper is out in iScience
Published June 24, 2026
Why are biological neuronal circuits so complex and highly structured?
Is it complex mechanisms and plasticity? Or is there a simpler explanation for at least some of the observations?
Our latest work offers a controversial, but intuitive answer: while a class of neurons collectively covers its entire surroundings, each individual neuron only reaches a small, spatially constrained portion of that space. This simple geometric reality, shaped by axonal continuity, gives rise to the structured connectivity motifs we observe in cortical circuits.
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Webinar | From Neuronal Morphologies to Insights using the OBI Virtual Labs
Published June 3, 2026
Neuronal morphology sits at the heart of understanding how neurons connect, communicate, and compute — yet working with reconstructed morphology data remains surprisingly cumbersome. From exploration and visualization to quality control, standardization, and advanced analysis, researchers routinely face fragmented workflows and scattered tooling.
Whether you are reconstructing neurons, building biologically accurate cell models, or simply trying to make sense of a large morphology dataset, this webinar will show you a more accessible and scalable way to do it. Open to researchers across all areas of neuroscience.
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Our new paper in PLOS Computational Biology
Published June 2, 2026
Excited to share our new paper in PLOS Computational Biology.
"A multimodal spatial atlas of transcriptomic, morphological, and electrophysiological cell type densities in the mouse brain”
For the first time, we've built a unified, high-resolution 3D atlas of the mouse brain that speaks all three languages of neuroscience — gene expression, cell shape, and electrical activity — at once.
Using MERFISH spatial transcriptomics data, the Allen Brain Cell Atlas, and patch-sequencing datasets, we mapped 5,274 transcriptomic cell types across the entire mouse brain at 25 µm³ voxel resolution. We then developed a probabilistic framework to translate these into 458 functional morpho-electrophysiological types — bridging the gap between modern transcriptomics and decades of classical cell-counting literature.
Understanding the brain isn't just about knowing which genes cells express — it's about knowing where they are, what shape they take, and how they fire. This atlas brings all three together in one place, opening new doors for large-scale brain simulation, disease modeling, and circuit-level neuroscience.The atlas and all tools are fully open-access. Whether you're building computational models, analyzing spatial transcriptomics, or exploring inhibitory neuron gradients, this resource is built for you.
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Replay | Spines & Motif Participation
Published May 11, 2026
In our second webinar, Michael Reimann demonstrated how the OBI Virtual Lab helps process complex EM data to extract valuable insights on spines and neural circuit organization.
Discover how high-resolution EM data and digital brain models are advancing our understanding of neural circuit organization.
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Webinar | Spines & Motif Participation
Published April 2, 2026
The second webinar of our series is open for registration!
Most cortical excitatory connections are made onto dendritic spines.
But beyond plasticity, could spines actually enable which connections are formed?
Using our Virtual Labs and EM data from the #MICrONS project (Allen Brain Institute), we will explore whether dendritic spine anatomy is linked to the topology of local brain networks.
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Replay | From Ion Channel Mutations to Neuronal Dysfunction
Published March 20, 2026
In this webinar, we explored how pathogenic variants — such as the R581Q mutation in KCNQ2 — can be transformed into predictive, multiscale brain models, and showcased our Virtual Labs where experimental data, biophysical modeling, simulation workflows, and AI-assisted discovery come together to bridge genes, neurons, and networks.
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Meet Open Brain Scientist James Isbister during Hybrid Minds Vienna 2026
Published February 26, 2026
Leveraging and Accelerating Simulations Neuroscience.
Multi-scale biophysically-detailed brain models are a powerful scientific tool, acting as general models for exploring a wide range of scientific questions. The talk introduces these models and proven applications, from understanding spike sorting biases to predicting structure-function relationships. Openly available electron-microscopic datasets enable the next generation of one-to-one tissue models. Lessons learned from previous collaborative efforts are characterized to leverage existing models and accelerate new model development. The Virtual Labs of the Open Brain Institute, an open platform for collaborative neuroscience, simplify international teams’ efforts to leverage existing models and build one-to-one brain models.
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Webinar | From Ion Channel Mutations to Neuronal Dysfunction
Published February 22, 2026
In the first webinar of our series, we invite you to explore how such disease-causing mutations can be collaboratively modeled at the subcellular and cellular levels using the Virtual Labs of the Open Brain Institute.
Join us for a live demonstration of our Virtual Labs, where experimental data, biophysical modeling, simulation workflows, and AI-assisted discovery come together to bridge genes, neurons, and networks.
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Visit Us at SfN 2025 and Experience Our Virtual Labs in Action!
Published November 17, 2025
Step into the future of neuroscience and discover how our Virtual Labs empower you to explore, build, and experiment with Digital Brain Models — from single neurons to small microcircuits. Uncover how cutting-edge simulation meets interactivity, data exploration, and AI — all in one powerful platform.
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Join us for hands-on tutorials and live demos
Published June 16, 2025
Open Brain Institute will be featured at CNS*2025, presenting a full day of interactive sessions, live demos, and guided tutorials showcasing the Open Brain Platform — a cutting-edge collaborative environment for exploring, building, and simulating digital brain models, from single neurons to circuits.
We can't wait to connect with the neuroscience community in Florence!
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