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Creating the next generation of highly detailed human brain models by building on the BigBrain - the first openly accessible, microscopic resolution 3D model of the human brain.

News About the BigBrain

HIBALL Winter School
date: March 11-12, 2024
We are happy to announce the next HIBALL Winter School which will take place on March 11-12, 2024 as a hybrid meeting, with physical meetings in both Jülich and Montreal connected via an interactive live stream.
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EBRAINS research infrastructure secures €38 million in funding for new phase of digital neuroscience
date: Jan 9, 2024
The European Commission has accepted the EBRAINS 2.0 proposal submitted in response to the INFRASERV call, granting €38 million for the further development of services of the EBRAINS research infrastructure.
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7th BigBrain Workshop 2023 - Videos
date: Jan 04, 2024
The videos from all three days of the 7th BigBrain Workshop are now available.
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Katrin Amunts receives Justine and Yves Sergent International Award
date: Dec 11, 2023
Katrin Amunts has been honoured with the 2023 Justine and Yves Sergent International Award, which is granted to outstanding female researchers for contributions in the field of cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging who have achieved a high international reputation
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Confluence of Art and Neuroscience
date: Nov 24, 2023
BigBrain-Inspired Art by OHBM 2023 Prize Winner Celesti Kozub
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BigBrain project excites at OHBM2023
date: Nov 24, 2023
OHBM 2023 BigBrain Booth: A booth showcasing the present and future of brain research
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BigBrain featured on Ici Radio Canada
date: Sept 17, 2023
The BigBrain was featured in a video segent on Ici Radio Canada.
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Featured: Laminar Thickness Profiles
date: Aug 21, 2023
We recently published a study on the variation of cortical laminar structure in the BigBrain dataset. The cerebral cortex consists of six cortical layers which are horizontally superimposed stripes of gray matter with characteristic features such as size, type and density of the neurons.
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Justine Hansen awarded the Karl Zilles Award
date: July 22, 2023
Congratulations Justine!
Justine Hansen was awarded the Karl Zilles Award in Integrative Neuroscience, recognising her work in integrating modern neuroanatomical approaches with multi-modal in-vivo neuroimaging at OHBM 2023. Congratulations!

About the BigBrain

Full dataset over 1TB

Scans at 20μm resolution

Multiple formats

An expanding brain atlas

A thriving community

What People Say About the BigBrain

Why create the BigBrain

A message from Dr. Zilles

the major advantage of the BigBrain for our work is that the image data of the human brain are registered as a 3D volume at very high spatial resolution. Since the human brain is folded, any part of the cortical ribbon may be subjected to the geometrical effects of this folding, i.e. the cortex is obliquely or even tangentially sectioned at various sites in a 2D representation, e.g. in images of single microtome sections. This effect hampers the measurement of any cortical structure which is bound to the 3D columnar architecture of the cortex. In contrast, the BigBrain allows analyses in 3D, and thus has opened the door to many studies which would not be possible in 2D representations.

Martha Crago

Vice-Principal (Research + Innovation) McGill University

With HIBALL the partnership between two world-leading research institutions in computational neuroscience will provide an important platform for the scientists to conduct innovative, interdisciplinary, and complementary research in a rich and collaborative setting.

Yoshua Bengio

Mila Scientific Director, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute

HIBALL assembles a team with world-leading expertise in neuroimaging, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and neuroinformatics, which complements well the team at Mila. The active participation of several PIs with ties to Mila is very exciting, and we anticipate this lab will further expand the collaboration between neuroscience and AI experts in the Montreal ecosystem, leading to cutting-edge discoveries in both fields.

Viktor Jirsa

Directeur de Recherche, CNRS

HIBALL can build on a remarkable expertise and international reputation and will lead to high impact contributions in Human Brain Atlasing, Neuroinformatics, and Machine Learning.