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Reference Database of Brain Images Goes Online Reuters Health By Deena Beasley LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Aug 08 - A computerized "atlas" of the brain is for the first time giving researchers and medical experts a map for unlocking the puzzles of the mind. The 10-year project "was born out of frustration," said Dr. John Mazziotta, chair of the department of neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school. The atlas, which the researchers recently started making available for use, will allow specialists to compare a patient's brain with those in the database. An international research consortium, led by Mazziotta and Dr. Arthur Toga, director of UCLA's laboratory of neuroimaging, has so far gathered digital images of 7,000 brains using technology such as magnetic resonance imaging scans. The scans taken of the brains of people mainly between the ages of 20 and 40 are colorized, animated and otherwise enhanced. The participants included healthy people as well as individuals with Alzheimer's disease, autism, schizophrenia and fetal alcohol syndrome. "What scientists do is take things apart and study one little thing at a time ... This atlas allows us to put it all together again," said Toga, who calls the brain "the last great frontier of human biology." The atlas, available online at http://www.loni.ucla.edu/ICBM , enables brain experts worldwide to access four- dimensional details -- time as well as the three dimensions of space -- of brain structure and function, descriptions of how the brain changes as we age and how and where neurological disease occurs. The project is funded by a number of sources including the National Institutes of Health. MORE CONFIDENCE IN DIAGNOSIS "Eventually, it will be used to compare against disease populations. It will give clinicians more confidence in a diagnosis," Toga said. The project is comprised of high-definition structural maps of individual brains based on age, race, gender, educational background, genetic composition and other distinguishing characteristics. Layered over the anatomical maps are animations of brain functions such as memory, emotion, language and speech. Users can look at individual brain pictures, composite pictures of subgroups by, for example, age or gender or as a composite of all 7,000 participants. Toga has overseen brain scans of hundreds of people who tested within a typical range on measures such as blood pressure and pulse. Scans were taken while the subjects were at rest and while they performed a series of tasks, from focusing on a picture of a checkerboard to responding to sounds, to capture how the brain responds to stimuli. "The brain handles the challenge of thinking of and initiating a word, and of understanding that word, differently. Execution of these tasks involves complex circuitry throughout the brain," said Mazziotta. These differences between brains make it difficult to know what is normal and what is not. The atlas is also expected to be a guide for neurosurgeons, who may not be able to actually view the critical areas in a patient's brain. The atlas project is promising, but it is too early to say how relevant it will be as a medical tool, said Dr. Mony De Leon, director of the New York University Center for Brain Health, who is not connected with the atlas project. "It could be used as an indicator to tell you whether part of the brain is outside of normal limits, but someone still has to interpret the results," he said. "If a pattern can be reliably determined, it will be an advantage in compiling evidence to demonstrate clinical relevance," De Leon said. The project "will probably never end," said Toga. "The point is to continue to refine and continue to add data." The consortium is in the process of expanding the database to include younger and older age groups as well as scans from people with various neurological diseases. SOURCE: Medscape / Reuters Health http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/459818_print * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn