A European team of scientists
have built the first atlas of white-matter microstructure in the human brain.
The project’s final results have the potential to change the face of
neuroscience and medicine over the coming decade. The work relied on
groundbreaking MRI technology and was funded by the EU’s future and emerging
technologies program with a grant of 2.4 million Euros. The participants of the
project, called CONNECT, were drawn from leading research centers in countries
across Europe including Israel, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark,
Switzerland and Italy.
The new atlas combines
three-dimensional images from the MRI scans of 100 brains of volunteers. To
achieve this, CONNECT developed advanced MRI methods providing unprecedented
detail and accuracy. Currently, biomedical research teams around the world
studying brain science rely on a brain atlas produced by painstaking and
destructive histological methods on the brains of a few individuals who donated
their bodies to science. The new atlas simulates the impossible process of
painstakingly examining every mm2 of brain tissue with a microscope, while
leaving the brain intact.
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