The Brain Observatory project takes on a herculean task of whole-brain atlas
2009 December 22
An interesting project called the Brain Observatory is recently started with an aim to study the architecture of the human brain. Project which is hosted at University of California, San Diego, will be slicing the brain into thin histological sections with thickness 70 microns each. The brain specimen will be sectioned along the CORONAL plane in one continuous session and interested readers can see live streaming of the cutting procedure from the project website. A fully sliced brain will be mounted, stained and digitized in order to create the first entirely reconstructed, whole-brain atlas very much similar to Google Earth/Map where anyone can zoom in or zoom out (virtual microscope) inside a digitized brain. Slicing of brain can be demanding but tedious work and in very first experiment Jacopo Annese, director of the Brain Observatory, and his team collected 2401 paper-thin tissue sections during a 53-hour procedure using Patient Henry Molaison‘s brain. 
Whole work is currently in first phase and on technical side the project was benefited with advance computer technology to track and digitally reproduces each slice. You can learn more about the project here and here.
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RT @abhishektiwari The Brain Observatory project takes on a herculean task of whole-brain atlas http://bit.ly/8WRMuT #fisheye
The Brain Observatory project takes on a herculean task of whole-brain atlas http://bit.ly/8WRMuT
Brain Observatory: http://bit.ly/4pOxP4
RT @anibalmastobiza: Brain Observatory: http://bit.ly/4pOxP4
The Brain Observatory project. (In-process. Think Google-Earth. Via @anibalmastobiza.) http://bit.ly/4pOxP4