Using a type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) called diffusion spectrum imaging to study the brains of five healthy individuals, Swiss and American researchers have drawn up the first high resolution map of connections in the brain.
Understanding communication between neurons in the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain responsible for reasoning and planning, can help researchers understand what is affected in a traumatic brain injury. By having a map of a “healthy” brain to compare an injured one to, the potential for healing these damaged areas increases greatly.
Olaf Sporns, co-author of the study, says that this map allows them to “measure a significant correlation between brain anatomy and brain dynamics,” meaning that this knowledge will allow them to better predict what the brain will do.
Up until now, the only data available regarding the wiring of the human brain came from studying the deceased. In the living brain, typical MRI studies could only note the ups and downs of neural activity, which could be applied to actions such as decision making, but failed to show the underlying workings in the brain.
The scientists involved in this study see this map as the first step towards the development of a full-scale model of the human brain. The potential use of this new technology is limitless.