Scientists Have Found 97 New Regions In The Human Brain That Could Help Understanding The Organ A Lot Better

Scanning of a homo brain by X-rays

Scientists take finally managed to come up with a more detailed program of the human encephalon past using the encephalon scans of a large number of human being beings. This identification scheme immune them to come up with no less than 100 new regions in the cerebral cortex.

There'south a lot more to the brain than nosotros know yet

This is not the first time something similar this is happening, scientists accept been reading the human brain since long. But this new brain map outlines 180 cortical areas which shows scientists how humans talk, feel and think. This will also help them understand more than in depth virtually disorders such every bit dementia, schizophrenia and autism among others.

The neuroscientist David Van Essen from the Washington Academy, who also led a number of international researchers, explains that "The brain is not like a computer that tin can support any operating system and run any software

"Instead, the software – how the brain works – is intimately correlated with the encephalon's structure – its hardware, so to speak. If you lot want to discover out what the brain can do, you have to understand how information technology is organized and wired."

The Human being Connectome Projection

The Human Connectome Project, which was basically a long term report that included getting brain scans of 1,200 young adults with a custom built MRI auto, was the main source of data used to create the map past the team led past Essen. From this sample of 1,200 participants, the scans of 210 healthy immature men and women were looked at. The cognitive cortex of the participants were measured and recorded as well as the outer layer containing the neural tissue was taken into account.

The participants were tested both when resting and doing simple mental tasks such as listening or doing memory tests. This was done to run into how dissimilar regions of the brain responded to dissimilar tasks. Afterward the drove of data the scientists used a machine learning algorithm, designed specifically past scientists at Oxford University in the UK, which is able to identify different regions of the encephalon and finds common coordinates between them.

brain

180 regions with 97 unique ones never known before!

Equally a result of all the hassle the scientists went through, around 180 new regions in the encephalon hemisphere (each) was finally mapped where 97 are new and item to this new research which went unnoticed earlier.

"[T]here's non a abrupt dividing line where suddenly red turns to green or blue. Rather, there are gradual transitions, indicating that there'south intermixing and coordination amidst dissimilar sensory modalities and cognitive domains," he said.

"They are based not on the folds of the cortex per se, but rather on the intricate interactions, communications, and connections betwixt the many billions of neurons that make upward the cognitive cortex."

"Another interesting area is POS2," one of the researchers, Matthew Glasser, told George Dvorsky at Gizmodo. "This is an area that had non previously been mapped before neuroanatomically. We don't however know what it is doing, simply given its unique design, information technology volition likely be something very specialised."

Irresolute brain maps once and for all

These scientists want to change the erstwhile encephalon maps that are withal used for reference purposes. They don't desire new generations to become through the aforementioned frustrations they did when they were studying. Some brain charts still used today are more than a century old, which need updates as presently as possible.

"My early on work on language connectivity involved taking that 100-twelvemonth-old map and trying to guess where Brodmann's areas were in relation to the pathways underneath them," Glasser said in a press release. "It speedily became obvious to me that we needed a better way to map the areas in the living brains that we were studying."

There is still room for comeback

These researchers are also under no illusion that their work will be used for and then long. They are well aware that their piece of work will be improved upon further by new and upcoming neuroscientists. They are actually hopeful for the future and if this research is developed upon it could very well give cures or better understanding to a lot of dissimilar disorders.

"We ended up with 180 areas in each hemisphere, but nosotros don't expect that to be the last number," said Glasser. "In some cases, we identified a patch of cortex that probably could exist subdivided, but we couldn't confidently draw borders with our electric current data and techniques. In the hereafter, researchers with ameliorate methods will subdivide that area. Nosotros focused on borders we are confident will stand the test of time."

Although they are sure of what they take done, the refining points are always welcome of new and improved scientists since there'due south still and then much however to exist discovered nigh the brain.

"Our aspiration is to make the best possible maps that we can, but we take to exist honest in saying our understanding, even with this new newspaper that'due south come out, is not the equivalent of a Google map," Essen told Motherboard. "We don't take the ability to navigate the cerebral cortex down to the level of individual neurons or even tiny patches."

Look at this video to find about more nearly the brain map.