David Van Essen: 2012 Allen Institute for Brain Science Symposium
Just as revolutions in cartography have taken us from classical maps to book atlases to satellite images and Google maps, so have revolutions in brain mapping taken us from the classical neuroanatomy maps of Brodmann to atlases to MRI volumes and surfaces and now to connectomics, described Dr. Van Essen. In a scientific landscape increasingly interested in the burgeoning field of connectomics, Van Essen first distinguished between the micro-connectome (neural systems mapped neuron-by-neuron on a micrometer scale resolution), meso-connectome (maps of neural populations on the scale of hundreds of micrometers, as in the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas), and macro-connectomes -- maps on the millimeter scale resolution of large brain systems being charted and characterized by the Human Connectome Project. This project, funded by the National Institute of Health, is a comprehensive effort to chart connectivity in 1,200 healthy adults using cutting-edge neuroimaging -- in particular diffusion tensor imaging -- along with extensive behavioral testing and genotyping of blood samples. All data will be freely available in a user-friendly platform. The project, ongoing since 2010, will see its initial data release from ~10 subjects in October 2012 and its first quarterly release of data from 80 participants in February 2013. Throughout this process, Van Essen and others working on the Human Connectome Projects have developed great improvements in neuroimaging techniques, from multi-band MR imaging to improvements in spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of diffusion imaging. "The project still has a long way to go," Van Essen pointed out, "but now we have methods to accelerate our tack on this."
David Van Essen, Washington University in St. Louis "The human connectome project"