High-Resolution Brain Atlases in CyberSpace

Neubrain writes "After a long decade of the U.S. sponsored Human Brain Project, we still have not advanced our understanding of brain structure and function very far. In particular, the availability of online high-resolution brain atlases has been sorely lacking, though the technology and means have been around for well over a decade. This has been remedied by the recent appearance of online high-resolution atlases at a new site called Primate-Brain.org, whose official description is: "The Primate Brain Atlas is a digital cytoarchitectural atlas based on high-resolution images of serial sections of monkey brains that is fully integrated with a high-speed database server for querying and retrieving data about primate brain structure and function over the internet." Maybe this is the start of something that is going to advance our understanding of brain structure and function rapidly? You be the judge. Ever wonder what's going on inside your head. Well, now you can go and look in excruciating detail at primate-brain.org . Happy brain hunting!"

Comments

Re:Image a computer; what does it tell you? Not mu

[Anonymous Coward]

Futurepower writes: "Those who think that a scan of the brain will tell us much about the operation can do a thought experiment: Have your computer scanned, and try to see from the photos which programs were running, and how those programs operate."

Very true, but the organization of computer hardware says A LOT about the types of software that can run on it. In neuroscience, there's a saying that structure implies function, or that neuroanatomy implies (or constrains) neural function. In understanding the brain, we have to get the neuroanatomy nailed down before we can start making general inferences about brain function. The site at http://primate-brain.org/ is a step in the direction of nailing down the neuroanatomy at the sub-micron level, and thus is a key step towards understanding the full complexity of brain function.