CANARIE, a vital component of Canada’s digital infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation,
today added to the chorus of congratulations for the Canadian-German team responsible for the creation of the
human brain atlas, which was recognized by the MIT Technology Review as one of the world’s breakthrough
technologies of 2014.
Dr. Alan Evans of the Montreal Neurological Institute, along with Dr. Katrin Amunts from the Jülich Research Centre
in Germany, led the team that created the three-dimensional brain atlas. The team painstakingly digitized and reassembled
7,000 slices of a human brain. The resulting atlas provides resolution that is 50 times greater in all three
dimensions than previous brain maps, providing scientists with detailed images to the level of 20 micrometers,
which is about the size of some human neurons.