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Localization in the brain: new solutions emerging

Abstract

Descriptions of neuroanatomical locations are often ambiguous. With the greatly increasing volumes of imaging data that are being produced and the increasing need to generate databases for the efficient analysis of these data, neuroscientists need to avoid such confusion in nomenclature. Here, I discuss the theory and practice on assigning locations to anatomical data, with a focus on data that have been collected from microscopic sections.

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Figure 1: Example of a partial 'next-generation atlas'.
Figure 2: Example of computerized analysis of neuronal distribution data.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all members of the NeSys Laboratory for their enthusiasm and helpful comments. In particular, I thank T. B. Leergaard for stimulating discussions and assistance with the preparation of the figures. NeSys research is supported by grants from The Research Council of Norway, The Jahre Foundation and The European Community.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

BrainMap

Cerebellum Database

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences

bioinformatics

biological data centres

mining biological databases

European Computerized Human Brain Database

fMRI Data Center

International Consortium for Brain Mapping

MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences

magnetic resonance imaging

positron emission tomography

NeSys Database

Neural Systems and Graphics Computing Laboratory

NEUROGENERATOR

NeuroNames

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Bjaalie, J. Localization in the brain: new solutions emerging. Nat Rev Neurosci 3, 322–325 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn790

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