One of the most detailed brain atlases in the world

An international team led by the Itaca Institute of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) has developed one of the most complete and detailed structural atlases of the human brain to date. The so-called HoliAtlas will be “especially useful” for the study and early diagnosis ofand neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

The new map It is based on magnetic resonance images (MRI) multimodal ultra-high resolution and far exceeds the level of detail of existing atlases based on magnetic resonance images, as reported by the academic institution in a statement.

The work, published in the magazine Scientific Reports (Nature)has been led by Professor José V. Manjón, coordinator of the Mialab group of Itaca-UPV, in collaboration with international institutions such as the CNRS and the University of Bordeaux, as well as with Spanish and European centers.

“HoliAtlas offers a complete, multi-level representation of the brainfrom global structures to very specific substructures, in a holistic way. Its resolution and multimodal integration facilitate the identification of deep structures and allow the development of more precise automatic segmentation methods, improving morphological analysis and detecting very subtle anatomical changes,” explained José Vicente Manjón, head of the MIA-LAB group at Itaca-UPV.

For this reason, he has detailed, This atlas could be “of great help” to study pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease and facilitate a “more precise” diagnosis. “Having increasingly precise brain atlases is key to understanding the architecture of the human brain, integrating data from different studies and moving towards more personalized diagnoses and treatments,” he stated.

Brain atlases function as reference maps, essential to locate anatomical structures “with precision” and compare data between studies or populations. In addition, they are “key” tools both in neuroscientific research and in clinical applications, such as surgery planning or the analysis of neurological diseases.

“Until now, most MRI-based atlases had a resolution of approximately 1 mm3. The new atlas developed reaches a resolution of 0.125 mm3, which allows us to observe much smaller and more complex brain structures,” indicated Sergio Morell, researcher in the MIA-LAB group of Itaca and co-author of the study.

Based on data from 75 healthy brains

To build this atlas, researchers They used brain images of 75 healthy volunteers from the prestigious Human Connectome Project.one of the largest international repositories of neuroimaging data. From this data, they applied advanced processing and normalization techniques to generate an average model of the brain.

“At its most detailed level, the atlas includes up to 350 anatomical regions obtained through the integration of seven different segmentation protocols, combining neuroanatomical analysis tools, artificial intelligence algorithms and manual corrections from experts”, concluded Sergio Morell.