Scientists create the world's first high-definition 3D model of a HUMAN BRAIN

Scientists have created the world's first high-definition 3D model of a complete human brain dubbed BigBrain.
BigBrain shows the anatomy of a brain in microscopic detail for the first time ever - at a spatial resolution of 20 microns. This is smaller than the size of one fine strand of hair and 250,000 times more detailed than current MRI brain scans.
Researchers from Germany and Canada took 7,400 individual slices from the brain of a deceased 65-year-old woman and plotted 80 billion neurons during the 10-year project.
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Scientists from German and Canadian neuroscience teams have created the first high-resolution 3D human brain. BigBrain is 250,000 times more detailed than a current MRI scan and the digital images were taken from individual slices of a deceased 65-year-old female's brain

THE BIGBRAIN IN NUMBERS

The BigBrain is 250,000 times more detailed than a regular brain scan.
7,400 individual slices from the brain of a deceased 65-year-old woman were used to create BigBrain.
80 billion neurons were captured in the project.
Scientists from Canada and Germany spent 1,000 years collecting the data.
The total brain reconstruction has taken 10 years to complete.
Each individual slice is half the width of a human hair.
The brain can be seen in microscopic detail at a spatial resolution of 20 microns.

And they have now made the brain available online for free to help other scientists develop the field of neuroscience. 
Until recently, reference brains did not scan further than the macroscopic, or visible, parts of the brain.

BigBrain provides a resolution much finer than the typical 1mm resolution from MRI studies.
Senior author Dr. Alan Evans, a professor at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University in Montreal, Canada said the project 'has been a tour-de-force to assemble images of over 7,400 individual histological sections, each with its own distortions, rips and tears, into a coherent 3-D volume.'
'This dataset allows - for the first time - a 3D exploration of human cytoarchitectural anatomy.'
The sophisticated modern image processing methods reveal an unprecedented look at the very fine details of the human brain's microstructure, or cellular level.
The online tool will allow for 3D cytoarchitectonic mapping of the human brain and can be used as a map for plotting small cellular circuit data. 

Thin sections of the 65-year-old human female brain were embedded in paraffin wax and cut by the scientists from Research Centre Julich in Germany using a special large-scale tool called a microtome

The 20-micrometer thick histological sections were then mounted on slides and digitised using a high-resolution flatbed scanner. It took the scientists approximately 1,000 hours to collect the data

It can also map single layers or sublayers of the cerebral cortex, explained the researchers.
Thin sections of a 65-year-old human female brain, which was embedded in paraffin wax, were cut with a special large-scale tool called a microtome.
The 20-micrometer thick histological sections were then mounted on slides, stained to detect cell structures and finally digitised using a high-resolution flatbed scanner.
This made it possible for the researchers to build a high-resolution 3D brain model.
It took approximately 1,000 hours to collect the data.
Researchers claim that the new reference brain, which is part of the European Human Brain Project, serves as a 'powerful tool to facilitate neuroscience research' and 'redefines traditional maps from the beginning of the 20th century.'

An online animation rotates the BigBrain, left, so researchers can look at it from all angles. Individual slices are then removed, right, to explain the process the German and Canadian researchers used during the project

Author Dr. Katrin Amunts from the Research Centre Jülich and director of the Cecile and Oskar Vogt Institute for Brain Research at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany said: 'The famous cytoarchitectural atlases of the early 1900's were simplified drawings of a brain and were based on pure visual analysis of cellular organization patterns.'
Because of the sheer volume of this dataset, the researchers say that there will be a 'push by those who want to use it to develop new and valuable tools for visualization, data management and analysis.'
'We plan to repeat this process in a sample of brains so that we can quantify cytoarchitectural variability,' said Dr. Evans.
'We will also integrate this dataset with high-resolution maps of white matter connectivity in post-mortem brains.
'This will allow us to explore the relationship between cortical microanatomy and fiber connectivity,' said Dr. Amunts.

The researchers have put the BigBrain data online and this digital portal will provide other neuroscientists with 3D cytoarchitectonic mapping of the human brain. It can be used as a map for plotting small cellular circuit data as well as map single layers or sublayers of the cerebral cortex, explained the researchers

Each of the 7,400 brain slices were stained with potassium dichromate and silver nitrate to highlight the different cell structures

'We are planning to integrate our receptor data of the human brain in the reference frame provided by the BigBrain,' continued senior co-author Dr. Karl Zilles, senior professor of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance and former director of the Cecile and Oskar Vogt Institute for Brain Research at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany.
'We will also transfer high-resolution maps of quantitative data on the regional and laminar distribution of native receptor complexes to the BigBrain.
'This will allow us to explore the relationship between cortical microanatomy and key molecules of neurotransmission.'
The fine-grained anatomical resolution will also allow scientists to gain insights into the neurobiological basis of cognition, language, emotions and other processes, according to the study.
The researchers plan to extract measurements of cortical thickness to gain insights into understanding aging and neurodegenerative disorders; create cortical thickness maps to compare data from in vivo imaging; integrate gene expression data from the Allen Institute; and generate a brain model with a resolution of 1 micron to capture details of single cell morphology.
Public access of the BigBrain dataset is available through the CBRAIN Portal.
The researchers have presented their work in the current issue of the journal Science.

Science's senior editor Peter Stern said: 'The authors pushed the limits of current technology.
'Such spatial resolution exceeds that of presently available reference brains by a factor of 50 in each of the three spatial dimensions.'