Anika Kuckertz, doctoral researcher at the Institute of Neurosciences and Medicine (INM-1)

“I cut the brain of a rat into about 1,400 of these fingernail-sized, wafer-thin slices and scan them. From this, we create a digital 3-D brain model, which will visualize individual nerve cells and also neurotransmitter receptors on the cell surface. We want to use it to better understand how structural differences influence the communication between individual nerve cells and brain regions and compare this with the human brain. So hopefully, we will also learn more about neurodegenerative diseases in humans.”