Neuroscience

An atlas of the brain allows us to define its spatial characteristics. Where is a given structure; relative to what other features; what are its shape and characteristics and how do we refer to it? Where is this region of functional activation? How different is this brain compared with a normal database? An atlas allows us to answer these and related questions quantitatively. Brain atlases are built from one or more representations of brain. They describe one or more aspects of brain structure and/or function and their relationships after applying appropriate registration and warping strategies, indexing schemes and nomenclature systems. Atlases made from multiple modalities and individuals provide the capability to describe image data with statistical and visual power.