Abstract:We have recently witnessed an explosion of large-scale initiatives and projects addressing mapping, modeling, simulation and atlasing of the human brain, including the BRAIN Initiative, the Human Brain Project, the Human Connectome Project (HCP), the Big Brain, the Blue Brain Project, the Allen Brain Atlas, the Brainnetome, among others. Besides these large and international initiatives, there are numerous mid-size and small brain atlas-related projects. My contribution to these global efforts has been to crea… Show more
“…Our brain atlases have been also continuously enhanced in terms of content, quality, and creation of new atlases as addressed in (Nowinski 2005 ; Nowinski 2017a ).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Over the last century brain atlases and maps have progressed tremendously from a few print cortical maps to a plethora of electronic, deformable, probabilistic, multi-modal, and multi-scale brain atlases in health and disease (Toga et al 2006 ; Evans et al 2012 ; Amunts et al 2014 ; Nowinski 2017a ). The brain atlases have been employed in a wide scope of applications ranging from medical education to research to clinics as reviewed in (Nowinski 2017a ). One of clinical applications of brain atlases is neuroradiology (Nowinski 2016 ) and, consequently, stroke image handling.…”
Stroke is a leading cause of death and a major cause of permanent disability. Its management is demanding because of variety of protocols, imaging modalities, pulse sequences, hemodynamic maps, criteria for treatment, and time constraints to promptly evaluate and treat. To cope with some of these issues, we propose novel, patented solutions in stroke management by employing multiple brain atlases for diagnosis, treatment, and prediction. Numerous and diverse CT and MRI scans are used: ARIC cohort, ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke CT cases, MRI cases with multiple pulse sequences, and 128 stroke CT patients, each with 170 variables and one year follow-up. The method employs brain atlases of anatomy, blood supply territories, and probabilistic stroke atlas. It rapidly maps an atlas to scan and provides atlas-assisted scan processing. Atlas-to-scan mapping is application-dependent and handles three types of regions of interest (ROIs): atlas-defined ROIs, atlas-quantified ROIs, and ROIs creating an atlas. An ROI is defined by atlas-guided anatomy or scan-derived pathology. The atlas defines ROI or quantifies it. A brain atlas potential has been illustrated in four atlas-assisted applications for stroke occurrence prediction and screening, rapid and automatic stroke diagnosis in emergency room, quantitative decision support in thrombolysis in ischemic stroke, and stroke outcome prediction and treatment assessment. The use of brain atlases in stroke has many potential advantages, including rapid processing, automated and robust handling, wide range of applications, and quantitative assessment. Further work is needed to enhance the developed prototypes, clinically validate proposed solutions, and introduce them to clinical practice.
“…Our brain atlases have been also continuously enhanced in terms of content, quality, and creation of new atlases as addressed in (Nowinski 2005 ; Nowinski 2017a ).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Over the last century brain atlases and maps have progressed tremendously from a few print cortical maps to a plethora of electronic, deformable, probabilistic, multi-modal, and multi-scale brain atlases in health and disease (Toga et al 2006 ; Evans et al 2012 ; Amunts et al 2014 ; Nowinski 2017a ). The brain atlases have been employed in a wide scope of applications ranging from medical education to research to clinics as reviewed in (Nowinski 2017a ). One of clinical applications of brain atlases is neuroradiology (Nowinski 2016 ) and, consequently, stroke image handling.…”
Stroke is a leading cause of death and a major cause of permanent disability. Its management is demanding because of variety of protocols, imaging modalities, pulse sequences, hemodynamic maps, criteria for treatment, and time constraints to promptly evaluate and treat. To cope with some of these issues, we propose novel, patented solutions in stroke management by employing multiple brain atlases for diagnosis, treatment, and prediction. Numerous and diverse CT and MRI scans are used: ARIC cohort, ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke CT cases, MRI cases with multiple pulse sequences, and 128 stroke CT patients, each with 170 variables and one year follow-up. The method employs brain atlases of anatomy, blood supply territories, and probabilistic stroke atlas. It rapidly maps an atlas to scan and provides atlas-assisted scan processing. Atlas-to-scan mapping is application-dependent and handles three types of regions of interest (ROIs): atlas-defined ROIs, atlas-quantified ROIs, and ROIs creating an atlas. An ROI is defined by atlas-guided anatomy or scan-derived pathology. The atlas defines ROI or quantifies it. A brain atlas potential has been illustrated in four atlas-assisted applications for stroke occurrence prediction and screening, rapid and automatic stroke diagnosis in emergency room, quantitative decision support in thrombolysis in ischemic stroke, and stroke outcome prediction and treatment assessment. The use of brain atlases in stroke has many potential advantages, including rapid processing, automated and robust handling, wide range of applications, and quantitative assessment. Further work is needed to enhance the developed prototypes, clinically validate proposed solutions, and introduce them to clinical practice.
“…Another project of note is The Human Connectome Project 2 (Van Essen et al, 2012), an NIH funded, 40 million USD project initiated in 2009, using advanced imaging techniques to construct a map of structural and function human brain connections. Other noteworthy pursuits include the Human Brain Project, 3 a European project which aims to build a simulation of the human brain (Hampton, 2014); the Swiss Blue Brain Project 4 attempts to create a digital reconstruction of the rodent and ultimately the human brain (Markram, 2006); and the Brainnetome, 5 a Chinese initiative, aims to create an in vivo map of functional brain regions in human and non-human primates (Fan et al, 2016;Nowinski, 2017).…”
The mouse is the most important animal model within neuroscientific research, a position strengthened by the widespread use of transgenic mouse models. Discoveries in animals are followed by corroboration in humans, and the interchange between these fields of research is essential to our understanding of the human brain. With the advent of advanced technologies such as single-cell transcriptomics, epigenetic profiling and diffusion MRI, many prominent research institutes and collaborations have emerged, aiming to construct complete human or mouse brain atlases with data on gene expression, connectivity and cell types. These initiatives are indispensable resources, but frequently require extensive, time-consuming development, and rely on updates by the provider. They often come in the shape of applications which require practice or prior technical know-how. Importantly, none of them place the human and the mouse brain next to each other to allow for immediate comparison. We present BrainWiki, a user-friendly, web-based atlas that links the human and the mouse brain together, sideby-side. The platform gives the user a simple overview of brain anatomy along with published articles relating to each brain region that allows the user to delve deeper into the current state of research concerning circuitry, brain functions and pathology. The website relies on interactivity and supports user contributions resulting in a dynamic website that evolves at the pace of neuroscience. It is designed to allow for constant updates and new features in the future which will contain data such as gene expression and neuronal cell types.
“…1,2 One article is dedicated to the technical aspects of brain atlas creation, 1 and the other is a detailed review of the past, current, and future roles of brain atlases. 2 Professor Nowinski is a very well-known expert in the area of brain atlases. This year is the 20th anniversary of the introduction of his first digital brain atlas to neuroradiology.…”
Section: Jaroslaw Krejzamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Understanding the paramount importance of brain atlases in neuroradiological research and clinical practice, I invited Professor Wieslaw Nowinski (Figure 1) to write two articles for The Neuroradiology Journal on brain atlases. 1,2 One article is dedicated to the technical aspects of brain atlas creation, 1 and the other is a detailed review of the past, current, and future roles of brain atlases. 2 Figure 1.Professor Wieslaw Nowinski.…”
Understanding how the brain works is essential in many aspects of people's lives. Many longitudinal population-based studies try to establish links between a variety of factors and successful/unsuccessful brain aging, behavior, psychiatric disorders, stroke, dementia, and death. Neuroimaging plays a crucial role in such studies. During recent decades we have witnessed rapid developments in computer technology and imaging techniques that allow for digitalization of highresolution 2 and 3-dimensional pictures of the whole brain. Neuroimaging methods have revolutionized our approach to learning, understanding, and utilizing neuroanatomy, which now forms part of a quantitative neuroscience. Functional non-invasive neuroimaging has become available not only for studying large samples of patients with diseases, but also of healthy subjects. Large population-based studies have started to deliver complex neuroimaging datasets, which have enabled researchers to explore links between brain structures and functions at the macro and micro levels, and study how they are affected by a variety of external factors. From the very beginning, integration of structural and functional data across large databases using a standardized approach was a challenge, as size and shapes of brains vary significantly. Digital brain atlases have become important in serving as databases in which neuroanatomical and functional data can be registered and spatially related in a standardized space. Registration of neuroanatomical data in a 3D atlas allows us to accumulate structural and functional data from different brains into structural and functional neural networks, as well as to identify locations and distributions of interactions in the network. The role of digital brain atlases is therefore absolutely crucial in modern neuroimaging research, and will continue to grow due to the huge increase in data. It can be safely assumed that without brain atlases, many major discoveries in clinical neuroscience over the last 20 years would not have been possible. It comes as no surprise that major research agencies have founded unprecedented ''big brain projects'', such as the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovate Neurotechnologies), the Human Brain Project to build a computer model of the human brain, and the Allen Brain Atlas to map gene expression integrated with the underlying neuroanatomy.
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