In the late 1800s, a group of German researchers identified other regions of the cortex, each having distinct types of cells packed together in unique ways. In 1907, Korbinian Brodmann published a catalog of 52 brain regions.
Neuroscientists have relied on his hand-drawn map ever since, adding a modest number of new regions with their own research. “This is the standard for where you are in the brain,” said Dr. Glasser.
Three years ago, Dr. Glasser and his colleagues set out to create a new standard. They drew on data collected by the Human Connectome Project, in which 1,200 volunteers were studied with powerful new scanners.
The project team recorded high-resolution images of each participant’s brain, and then recorded its activity during hours of tests on memory, language and other kinds of thought.
In previous attempts to map the cortex, scientists typically had looked only at one kind of evidence at a time — say, the arrangements of cells. The Human Connectome Project has made it possible to study the brain in much greater detail.
In addition to looking at the activity of the brain, the scientists also looked at its anatomy. They measured the amount of myelin, for example, a fatty substance that insulated neurons. They found sharp contrasts in myelin levels from one region of the cortex to the next.
“We have 112 different types of information we can tap into,” said David C. Van Essen, a principal investigator with the Human Connectome Project at Washington University Medical School.
Using these variables, the scientists trained a computer with data from 210 brains to recognize discrete regions of the cortex. Once the computer profiled the distinctive combinations of myelin, activity and other characteristics, they tested it on 210 other brains.
The computer pinpointed the regions in the new brains 96.6 percent of the time. The scientists found that only a small number of features were required to map the brain. That means that researchers will be able to use their method to map an individual’s brain in a little over an hour of scanning.