Scientists Developed an Ultra-Detailed 3D Map of the Human Brain

Study in a Sentence: Scientists took thousands of microscopic images of human brain slices and used AI to create a publicly available, exceptionally detailed 3D brain map that can be used to accelerate neurological research.

Healthy for Humans: To date, most brain maps haven’t had high enough resolution to study smaller subregions. To solve this problem, scientists developed NextBrain, the first detailed, whole-brain map built from extremely high-resolution microscope images of human brain tissue. Making NextBrain publicly available enables the scientific community to advance neurological research with greater precision and human-specificity, including for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Redefining Research: Researchers used AI to align about 10,000 thin brain slices from five donated brains and to mark 333 different brain regions, creating a 3D map that shows not only where each region is located but also how likely each location belongs to that region. They also built a tool that uses this atlas to automatically label brain areas in MRI scans, including both ultra-detailed scans of preserved brains and regular clinical MRI scans.