The Human Brain Online: An Open Resource for Advancing Brain Research | PLOS Biology

"Here we describe an open online resource, the Allen Human Brain Atlas, which puts comprehensive, standardized data from multiple entire human brains into the hands of the global research community, along with tools for mining and making sense of that data. This resource opens new avenues for advancing research programs across disciplines that share an interest in the human brain—from neuroscience research programs based on functional MRI (fMRI) or neuropharmacology, for example, to comparative evolutionary studies and human genetics. The Allen Human Brain Atlas is a multimodal atlas of gene expression and anatomy comprising a comprehensive “all genes, all structures” array-based dataset of gene expression and complementary in situ hybridization (ISH) studies targeting selected genes in specific brain regions. All data are publicly available online (www.brain-map.org) along with a suite of integrated data visualization and mining tools that enable scientists to uncover connections between structure, function, and the brain's underlying biochemistry...."