High-resolution Brain Atlas finished

[cleanhippie]

The human brain is big and complicated. There has been a map for gene expression in mice brains available for a number of years but human brains are a thousand times bigger and a little harder to come by for post-mortem research.

But published today is a high-resolution 3D atlas of the human brain created by an international team led by Michael Hawrylycz of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. The project was launched in March 2008 with a budget of $55 million.

Working with just two whole male brains and a single hemisphere from a third, the team used around 900 precise subdivisions and 60,000 gene expression probes to create the atlas.

This image is a 3D rendering of just one of the genes in internal brain structures overlaid onto an MRI scan. The level of gene expression at the different points on the map is indicated on a colour scale, with blue dots reflecting relatively low expression and red dots reflecting high expression.

The aim of the project is to provide a platform for further study into gene expression in the brain and how it is involved in normal and abnormal brain function. The Allen Brain Atlas is freely accessible online.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/09/allen-brain-atlas.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

[mopinko]

1. of course they use male brains.

because they are simpler?