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Creating the next generation of highly detailed human brain models by building on the BigBrain - the first openly accessible, microscopic resolution 3D model of the human brain.

News About the BigBrain

6th BigBrain Workshop: From microstructure to functional connectomics
date: Mar 01 2022
An in-person event taking place on October 25-27, 2022 in Zadar, Croatia

Registration is open
register now
Visit of German Chancellor and Canadian Prime Minister at MILA
date: Aug 22 2022
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visit MILA and met Yoshua Bengio, Katrin Amunts, Alan Evans. They led a discussion on drug discovery and brain mapping and brought forth unique research collaborations between German and Canadian research centres. This image shows a 3D-printed model of the BigBrain, which is now being displayed in the German embassy in Ottawa.
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CLOSING THE MECHANISTIC GAP: THE VALUE OF MICROARCHITECTURE IN UNDERSTANDING COGNITIVE NETWORKS
date: Aug 2022
Contemporary research linking spatial patterns of neural activity to psychological constructs describes “where” hypothesised functions occur, but not “how” these regions contribute to cognition.
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New website launched presenting the Julich Brain Atlas
date: July 11 2022
The new Julich Brain Atlas website has been launched in July 2022 presenting the concept and research behind the human brain atlas developed by teams at the Institute of Neuroscience Medicine (INM-1) at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Cécile and Oscar Vogt Institute for Brain Research in Düsseldorf.
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go to the atlas
Featured: Neuromaps
date: July 28 2022
Neuromaps – structural and functional interpretation of brain maps.
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Explore microscopic features at cellular level
date: July 7 2022
Amazing data out: BigBrain sections at micron in-plane resolution, aligned to the 20µm 3D-reconstructed BigBrain. View the data in siibra-explorer and download from the EBRAINS Knowledge Graph.
Open Siibra-Explorer
German Minister of Education and Research visit HIBALL
date: June 17 2022
A German delegation visited The Neuro recently to learn more about international initiatives including HIBALL. It was led by Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Minister of Education and Research for Germany.
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Katrin Amunts speaks at closing event of German-Canadian Research Cooperation
date: June 9 2022
Katrin Amunts speaks at closing event for 50th Anniversary of German-Canadian Research Cooperation.
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About the BigBrain

Full dataset over 1TB

Scans at 20μm resolution

Multiple formats

An expanding brain atlas

A thriving community

What People Say About the BigBrain

Why create the BigBrain

A message from Dr. Zilles

the major advantage of the BigBrain for our work is that the image data of the human brain are registered as a 3D volume at very high spatial resolution. Since the human brain is folded, any part of the cortical ribbon may be subjected to the geometrical effects of this folding, i.e. the cortex is obliquely or even tangentially sectioned at various sites in a 2D representation, e.g. in images of single microtome sections. This effect hampers the measurement of any cortical structure which is bound to the 3D columnar architecture of the cortex. In contrast, the BigBrain allows analyses in 3D, and thus has opened the door to many studies which would not be possible in 2D representations.

Martha Crago

Vice-Principal (Research + Innovation) McGill University

With HIBALL the partnership between two world-leading research institutions in computational neuroscience will provide an important platform for the scientists to conduct innovative, interdisciplinary, and complementary research in a rich and collaborative setting.

Yoshua Bengio

Mila Scientific Director, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute

HIBALL assembles a team with world-leading expertise in neuroimaging, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and neuroinformatics, which complements well the team at Mila. The active participation of several PIs with ties to Mila is very exciting, and we anticipate this lab will further expand the collaboration between neuroscience and AI experts in the Montreal ecosystem, leading to cutting-edge discoveries in both fields.

Viktor Jirsa

Directeur de Recherche, CNRS

HIBALL can build on a remarkable expertise and international reputation and will lead to high impact contributions in Human Brain Atlasing, Neuroinformatics, and Machine Learning.