Newly mapped brain

Neuroscientists have recently reported on an analysis of the brains of 210 healthy young adults and mapped 180 areas of the brain in full colour.  This includes 97 regions of the outer layer of the brain that were previously undiscovered. The research team led by Matthew Glasser and co-funded by the US National Institutes of Health, used data from the Human Connectome Project and was published in the journal Nature.

Pankaj Sah from the University of Queensland penned a useful explanatory article about this research in The Conversation this week, Mapping the brain: scientists define 180 distinct regions, but what now?  He writes, "An updated brain atlas will provide greater insights into how the brain controls behaviour and how disorders in certain regions contribute to brain diseases."

Glasser, MF et al. A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex. Nature. 2016 Jul 20. doi: 10.1038/nature18933. [Epub ahead of print]