- Soon, neurologists, neurosurgeons and psychiatrists in India can map the brain structure of their patients and make an accurate assessment using Indian Brain Templates (IBT) and a brain atlas developed by a team of neuroscientists from NIMHANS.
- The neuroscientists studied over 500 brain scans of Indian patients to develop five sets of Indian brain templates and a brain atlas for five age groups covering late childhood to late adulthood (six to 60 years).
- The Montreal Neurological Index (MNI) template that we currently use is based on Caucasian brains.
- The MNI template was made by averaging 152 healthy brain scans from just a small slice of the city’s population in North America.
- But Caucasian brains are different from Asian brains.
- While some countries have their own scale to measure the brain, we are still dependent on the Caucasian brain template.
- The templates and atlas will provide more precise reference maps for areas of interest in individual patients with neurological disorders like strokes, brain tumours, and dementia.
- These templates and atlas will also help pool information more usefully in group studies of the human brain and psychological functions,
- Aiding our understanding of psychiatric illnesses like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), autism, substance dependence, schizophrenia, and mood disorders.
- When most brain scans (MRI) are taken, they need to be compared to a standard brain template — a model or standard for making comparisons from a group of individual brain scans.
- This helps researchers identify parts of the brain.
- A challenge for researchers is that brain size and shape differs across ages, and across regions and ethnicities, and even greatly within any population.
- These new population- and age-specific Indian brain templates will allow more reliable tracking of brain development and ageing, similar to how paediatricians monitor a child’s height or weight, for example, using a growth chart.
