A group of Chinese scientists has developed a new, more detailed map of the human brain, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced Tuesday on its website.

The Brainnetome atlas was developed by the Brainnetome Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. [Photo from cas.cn]

The Brainnetome atlas is the first map of the human brain based on in vivo research, or research on living organisms. It provides important connectivity information of the human brain and is much more detailed than the currently more prevalent Brodmann map, which was based on the research of dead bodies and was developed more than 100 years ago.

Compared with traditional human brain maps, the Brainnetome atlas has more fine-grained functional brain subregions and more detailed anatomical and functional connection patterns for each area. It is expected to help researchers more accurately describe the locations of the activation or connectivity in the human brain.

For example, with the Brainnetome atlas, researchers will be able to accurately locate the damaged part of a brain suffering from a stroke or epilepsy, or to remove gliomatosis cerebri, a rare primary brain tumor, without affecting the functional areas of the brain.

The Brainnetome atlas was created by a research team led by Jiang Tianzi, professor and director of the CAS Brainnetome Center and the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, in collaboration with foreign research institutions. The atlas has been released online by the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility.

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