Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre to map human brain

The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) has launched the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre to power an ambitious global project to map the human brain at the cellular and connectivity levels, with a focus on high-resolution brain imaging. This state-ofthe-art centre aims to become a world-renowned research centre, generating unprecedented human brain data, scientific output and technology tools. IIT-M plans to train hundreds of undergraduate and postgraduate students at this centre in neuroscience and computing, machine learning techniques on cutting-edge brain data. The first ongoing project of the centre titled ‘Computational and Experimental Platform for High-Resolution Terapixel Imaging of ex-vivo Human Brains’ for high-throughput light microscopic imaging of whole human brains is supported by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. Through this project, the centre has developed a highthroughput histology pipeline that processes whole human brains into high-resolution digital images. Using this technology platform, the centre is imaging post-mortem human brains of different types and ages. The centre has already acquired whole brain serial-section cell-resolution volumes of three developing brains to date.