Tuesday

Study maps cerebral cortex neural fibers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (UPI) -- A U.S.-Swiss team of scientists say they've created the first complete high-resolution map of the neural fibers in the human brain's cerebral cortex.

The team said its findings identified a single network core, or hub, that might be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.

Researchers from Indiana University, the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne; and the Harvard Medical School say their study marks a major step in understanding the most complicated and mysterious organ in the human body.

"This is one of the first steps necessary for building large-scale computational models of the human brain to help us understand processes that are difficult to observe, such as disease states and recovery processes to injuries," said Olaf Sporns, co-author of the study and a neuroscientist at Indiana University.

The findings are detailed in the journal PLoS Biology.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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