Anchors try to close that gap.
Users can zoom from the entire brainstem to individual neurons visible on MRI while maintaining accurate spatial relationships. Researchers have made this atlas freely available online., externalWe hope that it will become a reference tool for neuroscientists, neurologists, and neurosurgeons around the world.
Its applications may extend beyond anatomy.
By comparing healthy brainstem maps with diseased tissue, scientists can better understand disorders ranging from Parkinson’s disease and stroke to Alzheimer’s disease and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). More accurate maps could also help neurosurgeons navigate one of the brain’s most sensitive regions with greater confidence.
Anchors are not a diagnostic tool. Instead, the greatest value lies in the questions it can help you answer.
Partha Mitra, a brain scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and collaborator with SGBC, says such detailed brain maps could have a “transformative impact” on neurological disease research by revealing cell-by-cell how brains affected by conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease or autism differ from healthy brains.
They may also help explain how infections, including COVID-19, cause long-term neurological damage, Mitra told the BBC.
Using stroke as an example, Folkerth said the atlas has discovered new capabilities that could help doctors preserve brain tissue that is damaged but not yet repairable, potentially improving patient outcomes. Other scientists say the atlas could help neurosurgeons navigate the brainstem more safely.
Part of the appeal of this atlas lies in its simplicity. Built on high-resolution images of thin slices of postmortem brain tissue, this approach allows detailed cellular-level mapping to be made inexpensively.
Mitra says this makes it possible to diagram the human brainstem at an unprecedented scale.
The achievement reflects broader changes in neuroscience, where advances increasingly rely as much on engineering and computation as on biology.
About 20 scientists spent 18 months at SGBC manually analyzing more than 200 brain sections, combining MRI scans, microscopic anatomy and 3D reconstructions into a single digital atlas. The center currently hosts more than 200 researchers, engineers and technicians working with collaborators from around the world.
The results help bridge a surprising gap in neuroscience.
