Neocortical neurons come in bewildering shapes and functions. Since more than a century neuroscientists have proposed hundreds of ways how to classify them, resulting in a jungle of contradictory nomenclatures. Now, 72 neuroscientists assembled in Copenhagen and proposed to start anew by classifying neocortical neurons based on single-cell transcriptomics that holds the promise of being complete, accurate, and suited to incorporate data from different approaches, developmental stages and species. Such a community-based classification could provide a common foundation for the study of cortical circuits.

Yuste, R., Hawrylycz, M., Aalling, N., Aguilar-Valles, A., Arendt, D., Arnedillo, R. A., Ascoli, G. A., Bielza, C., Bokharaie, V., Bergmann, T. B., Bystron, I., Capogna, M., Chang, Y., Clemens, A., de Kock, C. P. J., DeFelipe, J., Dos Santos, S. E., Dunville, K., Feldmeyer, D., Fiáth, R., Fishell,G. J., Foggetti, A., Gao, X., Ghaderi, P., Goriounova, N. A., Güntürkün, O., Hagihara, K., Hall, V. J., Helmstaedter, M., Herculano, S., Hilscher, M. M., Hirase, H., Hjerling-Leffler, J., Hodge, R., Huang, J., Huda, R., Khodosevich, K., Kiehn, O., Koch, H., Kuebler, E. S., Kühnemund, M., Larrañaga, P., Lelieveldt, B., Louth, E. L., Lui, J. H., Mansvelder, H. D., Marin, O., Martinez-Trujillo, J., Chameh, H. M., Nath, A., Nedergaard, M., Němec, P., Ofer, N., Pfisterer, U. G., Pontes, S., Redmond, W., Rossier, J., Sanes, J. R., Scheuermann, R., Serrano-Saiz, E., Steiger, J. F., Somogyi, P. S., Tamás, G., Tolias, A. S., Tosches, M. A., García, M. T., Vieira, H. M., Wozny, C., Wuttke, T. V., Yong, L., Yuan, J., Zeng H. and Lein, E., A community-based transcriptomics classification and nomenclature of neocortical cell types. Nature Neurosci., 2020, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-0685-8.