New computer tools can reconstruct 3D brain from biobank photos
Published in Brain Architecture & Maps.
Researchers have developed a suite of free tools for analyzing vast amounts of brain dissection photographs at brain banks worldwide to enhance understanding of neurodegenerative diseases.
The study, published today as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, is described by the editors as providing a valuable open-source tool for researchers in the neuropathology and neuroimaging field, supported by convincing evidence from experiments using both real and synthetic data.
Measuring the volume of different brain regions is an important way to understand aging and neurodegenerative diseases and is usually carried out either by using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan in people while they are alive or by studying sections of brain tissue donated to brain banks after death.
Being able to link the results of microscopic tissue analysis with large-scale macroscopic data from MRI scans is invaluable, but MRI scans are usually obtained from patients many years before they die, making it difficult to link what is seen on the scan with what is later seen under a microscope.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12-tools-reconstruct-3d-brain-biobank.html