Frozen Brain Atlas: Individualized Brain Mapping for Research and Education

Frozen Brain Atlas: Individualized Brain Mapping for Research and Education

The Frozen Brain Atlas provides students, educators, and scientists with a tool to further explore the architecture of the brain. Current brain atlases allow users to navigate sectioned brain tissue using histological staining; however, they fail to capture naturally visible fiber tract structures post sectioning. Through immediate post sectioning image collection, the natural contrast of the brain reveals unique structural details that are rarely seen by traditional staining procedures. The Frozen Brain Atlas project creates a user friendly online interactive brain atlas available to the public as a teaching tool, along with researchers as a source for reference. The project aims to highlight specific structures and explain their functions, allowing users to navigate through all the sections of the rat, mouse, and potentially brains of other species. While there are other brain atlases available that are used as resources, including the Allen Brain Atlas, and the Paxinos and Watson rat and mouse Brain Atlases, we anticipate the Frozen Brain Atlas will complement these other atlases by virtue of its ability to show neuroanatomical characteristics that are apparent in freshly cut sections, opposed to stained sections. By utilizing indexing and interactive labeling, the Nova Southeastern University’s Frozen Brain Atlas will allow identification of brain regions when used as a correlative tool for modalities including receptor autoradiography, immunofluorescence, and other anatomical methods.