New map of the human brain reveals some of its most important parts have been ignored
Map combines over a century's worth of research, from anatomical models based on paper-thin slices of cadaver brains and modern MRI scans
Imagine that the first map you ever saw of the United States was simply a rough outline of the country's borders with only about half the state boundaries penciled in.
That's essentially the type of diagram that scientists have been using as a map of the human brain for more than 100 years.
Fortunately, that's about to change.
By combining data from a handful of imaging techniques, an international coalition of researchers has created one of the most precise maps of the human brain ever seen. The new map, published in the journal Nature, divides the brain up into 180 unique brain regions, of which 97 have never been identified before.
"This is something of a landmark in terms of mapping the brain that we are very excited to share with the world," David Van Essen, one of the paper's authors and the alumni endowed professor of neuroscience at the Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, Missouri, says.
To make it, the scientists combined over a century's worth of brain research, from 20th-century anatomical models based on dyed, paper-thin slices of cadaver brains, to modern MRI scans designed to show brain activity in live people.
It's incredibly cutting-edge; futuristic, even. But it's also grounded in a method of exploration that's been around for hundreds of years: Mapping.