Scientists Unveil Worlds First Computerized Human Brain Map 73
An anonymous reader writes "US scientists on Tuesday unveiled the world's first computerized human brain map, an online public resource developed to accelerate understanding of how the human brain works and in hopes to tackle neurological diseases like Alzeimer's and Parkinson's. Funded by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, the 55-million-US dollar project, named the Allen Human Brain Atlas, identifies 1,000 anatomical sites in the human brain, backed by more than 100 million data points that indicate the particular gene expression and underlying biochemistry of each site, said the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science. The human brain map released so far is only male."
Only male? (Score:5, Funny)
Makes sense, they didn't want to start with a variable map.
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Actually, I've found female behavior to be easier to predict based on knowledge of personal history, as well as personal history easier to predict based on female behavior, than in males. I'd welcome correction on this, if someone can cite a reference (or at least provide a convincing logical argument), but it seems like men are less responsive to traumatic events than women.
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Have you rigorously maintained records of this? People tend to forget incidents that disconfirm their personal biases.
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No records. I've done no scientific research, only casual observation. Over a few weeks, I might watch the way a girl interacts with those around her, and then I ask her, "Did such and such happen to you, around the time you were so and so age?" and the answer is often affirmative, though sometimes with some minor corrections. I haven't had occasion to do so in a number of years, but women were always much easier to read than men, and younger easier than older.
As I said, it's completely unscientific and I w
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Start with a map of a mans mind and then take away reason and accountability and you will have a womans mind mapped.
Just kidding, God the women here are going to kill me......err wait this is slashdot so I should be fairly safe.
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Damn, I nearly choked on my breakfast. Thanks for the laugh. Where, oh where are my mod points?
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Damn, I nearly choked on my breakfast. Thanks for the laugh. Where, oh where are my mod points?
You have a fucking low bar for your sense of humour.
Here's one you might enjoy:
Q: Why did the slashdotter cross the road?
A: Because he saw a woman coming towards him and shat his pants.
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http://i.imgur.com/W5T39.jpg [imgur.com]
Female brain already mapped. (Score:2)
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I was expecting something like this [gregladen.com]
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Random(100);
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{
if (max > 3)
return 3;
else
throw CantReturnThreeException;
}
not for linux (Score:1)
The software to show the map is not FOSS and also not available for Linux.
http://human.brain-map.org/explorer.html [brain-map.org]
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> The software to show the map is not FOSS and also not available for Linux.
It's his fifty-five million! He can do what he wants with it!
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HTML5? (Score:2)
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Actually, those sites are the same ones as sex (the reproductive part, not the recreative).
There were a couple studies a few years ago that showed the strong correlation between shopping (time spent, amount of money spent) and the menstrual cycle.
1000 whole sites (Score:3, Insightful)
1000 whole sites. Too bad the brain has something like 100 trillion synapses. So that means each site contains an average of about 100 billion synapses. I want a higher resolution map.
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1,000 is probably on the low side ultimately, but with 100b synapses, you'd be averaging about 100m per structure. That's thoroughly unscientific, but you'd expect to have a fairly substantial number per structure. Otherwise minor damage to anything anywhere in the brain would be catastrophic.
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Look any reasonable functional connectivity map across a large group of individuals will organize itself into about 20 networks and maybe 100 nodes. 1000 sites is probably too many for studying neurodegenerative disorders.
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I can help with mapping the female mind. (Score:1)
Just take the male map, remove reason and logic and voila, female brain map.
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Just take the male map, remove reason and logic and voila, female brain map.
It took me a while to remember what your comment reminded [hark.com] me of.
Evidence of a jump in technology? (Score:2)
Woohoo!
Who's been sleeping in my brain? (Score:2)
U.S. scientists on Tuesday unveiled the world's first computerized human brain map, an online public resource developed to accelerate understanding of how the human brain works and in hopes to tackle neurological diseases like Alzeimer's and Parkinson's.
Hmmm . . . can I use that map on my GPS Navigator?"
Navigator: "Please take a left turn at your next neurological problem ,,, oh, never mind ... can you replace the loose nut behind the wheel, and take this car back to Hertz?"
Funded by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, the 55-million-U.S. dollar project, named the Allen Human Brain Atlas, identifies 1,000 anatomical sites in the human brain, backed by more than 100 million data points that indicate the particular gene expression and underlying biochemistry of each site, said the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Well, that says a lot . . . "Thanks for all the fish, Mr. Allen . . ."
Female brain is easy... (Score:1)
now if only (Score:2)
Now if only we had a computerized brain to analyze the computerized brain map...
It reminds me of the quote attributed to Emerson M. Pugh,
"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."
That could be extremely useful. (Score:3)
The BBC is reporting that brain scans can detect Alzheimers [bbc.co.uk] decades before symptoms show. If you couple the two studies together, you should be able to identify what biochemistry is related to those specific areas that are thinning and no others. In further news, five more genes linked to the disease [bionews.org.uk] have now been identified. One of them turns out to be also linked to the immune system - which is interesting, since one of the key processes involved is the production of tau protein tangles which literally crush areas of the brain to death and toxic substances in the brain (such as aluminium) are known to trigger that process.
It has always struck me that it had to be an immune response of some sort, since the tau proteins "contain" these contaminants, but I'd pictured it as being an archaic response (there's no evolutionary advantage in being dead, but there is an evolutionary advantage in single-cell and simple multi-cell organisms being able to detox). There's nothing in the BioNews article to suggest the mutation is a regression bug, though it's not exactly chock-full of details on things like how old the regions involved are.
Anyways, with now ten genes identified, a region identified as pre-symptom Alzheimers, and a knowledge of the genes and chemistry of that part of the brain, it should be possible to do quite a bit.
Re:That could be extremely useful. (Score:4, Interesting)
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You are correct that it only shows gross changes, which makes it so surprising it can detect Alzheimer's a decade or so before symptoms show. It means that even if you couldn't cure the condition but only stop it, you could stop it before it became a problem. Mind you, with the 9.2T MRIs you can resolve virtually down to the individual neurons. (Having said that, only two exist as far as I know.)
You are also correct that the cost, time and long queues make this a prohibitive technique for preventative medic
Next iteration of the map (Score:2)
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I always enjoyed the dickless homunculis in my neuroanatomy books. A minor oversight! ;-)
Cute, but meh. (Score:2)
About as useful as slicing your computer into 0.1-mm thicknesses then labelling them by the smell of each 0.1-mm square thereof.
The brain is a network of fluid tubes, wiring, electrochemical interfaces, and active surfaces. The gross chemical distribution is as important to signalling as the precise position and reactive conditioning of wiring connections is. Probably the least important thing about its function is "gene expression".
Gene expression is useful only for disease mapping. Helpful to someone wh
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To be honest I've been trying to find a use for this gene expression visualization feature for the last 2 hours by looking at different things different ways and I've come up with nothing yet. Also the program keeps crashing if I click anywhere when looking at coronal sections. The software is good for learning anatomy, I'm really at a loss for the gene expression visualization though. I guess overlapping patterns could mean the genes regulated each other, but if you have multiple splice variants and one is
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Gene expression is useful only for disease mapping.
That is the most ignorant thing I've heard today. Gene expression levels are germane to understanding any biochemistry or signaling pathways in a given tissue.
which male brain? (Score:2)
I think the little one is a lot easier; although the big one is pretty much undifferentiated tissue.
Think of the national security ramifications (Score:2)
Publishing a map of the brain only makes it that much easier for GPS-equipped Zombies.
Some maps should be kept secret for national security reasons.
Certainly a Zombie invasion would be a national security disaster. Why give them a computerized map to make their job easier?
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Anyone can post, "I for one welcome our new zombie overlords," but these guys will be able to demonstrate that they supported the apocalypse before it started! They will be eaten last, and you and I will wish we had been on that team.
Duh (Score:2)
I'd say it's more functionally accurate to say that the male human brain maps out at a function amazingly similar to Eva Longoria. At least, most of her.