Genome scale mapping of brain gene expression

Two new approaches, voxelation and gene expression tomography (GET), permit multiplex acquisition of gene expression patterns in the brain. Both methods result in volumetric images of gene expression analogous to those produced in biomedical imaging systems. Voxelation employs analysis of spatially registered cubes from the brain, whereas GET entails analysis of parallel slices obtained by rotation about multiple axes. These methods have been used to investigate neurologic diseases and their models in both humans and mice. The results of these studies are discussed, as is the future of high-throughput gene expression mapping in the brain.