Number of Brain-Specific Genes?

James Teo james at
Sat Dec 9 08:33:30 EST 2000

On Sat, 9 Dec 2000 16:06:50 +0800, "y.k.y" <y.k.y at> wrote:

>What is the estimated number of genes expressed specifically
>in the brain? The genome database contains known genes but
>what about the total number of known and unknown ones?

Your method is sound (costs alot of money, but sound) but there is the
definition problem. We haven't actually decided what a gene is, and so
we can't decide how long one is. That's why there is the famous wager
for the number of human genes there are, ranging from 30,000 to
120,000. Scientists are still arguing about what to count as a single
gene, so until then you would have to put your experiment on hold.

More information about the Neur-sci mailing list