November 7, 2010

To Fight Diseases, Colleges Push Effort to Create Better Brain Maps

This Is Your Brain on Maps 1

David Van Essen, Matt Glasser, Tim Laumann, Washington U. in St. Louis

More function than structure: The yellow and red colors in the top brain image show regions known to have anatomical connections to the spot indicated by the blue dot. These colors are more widespread in the bottom image, which shows functional links and not anatomical ones. This implies that as-yet-undiscovered structures may connect some of these areas. The green, blue, and purple areas are active at times when the brain area at the blue dot is not.

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close This Is Your Brain on Maps 1

David Van Essen, Matt Glasser, Tim Laumann, Washington U. in St. Louis

More function than structure: The yellow and red colors in the top brain image show regions known to have anatomical connections to the spot indicated by the blue dot. These colors are more widespread in the bottom image, which shows functional links and not anatomical ones. This implies that as-yet-undiscovered structures may connect some of these areas. The green, blue, and purple areas are active at times when the brain area at the blue dot is not.

By Paul Basken

In the years after World War II, the French psychiatrist Jean Talairach was so determined to help epilepsy patients that he devised a detailed map of the brain to guide doctors during surgery.

A half-century later, Dr. Talairach's grid system, despite major shortcomings—it was based solely on the brain of a small, 60-year-old French woman—remains a standard atlas for surgery and for neurological research.

This fall, on 11 university campuses in the United States