IIT Madras releases most detailed 3D high-res images of human fetal brain

New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has become the First Research Organization in the world to release the most detailed 3D High-Resolution images of the fetal brain.

This pioneering work from the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre of IIT Madras pushes the frontiers of Brain Mapping Technology and places India in the global league of brain mapping science as this is first-of-its-kind work anywhere in the world.

This Data Set, termed ‘DHARANI’, is available open source, making it freely available for all researchers world-wide.

For the first time globally, 5,132 Brain sections have been captured digitally using cutting-edge Brain Mapping Technology developed by Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre in the Institute. This work will advance the field of Neuroscience and potentially lead to the development of treatment for health conditions affecting the brain.

This monumental work is the first time such advanced human neuroscience data has been produced from India. The project was done at less than 1/10th of the costs in Western Countries. The research was undertaken by a multidisciplinary team at IIT Madras with researchers from India, Australia, U.S., Romania and South Africa, and medical collaborations with Chennai-based Mediscan Systems and Saveetha Medical College Hospital.

This research, led by Prof. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, IIT Madras, is critical for India as the country accounts for nearly one-fifth of the world’s childbirths at 25 million each year.

This makes it vital for the country to understand the brain development from the fetus to a child, to adolescence, and to a young adult, and developmental disorders like learning disabilities and autism.

This work was supported by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus and Co-Founder, Infosys, Premji Invest, Fortis Healthcare and Agilus Diagnostics. NVIDIA, the leading AI company, partnered with the Centre to help process these petabytes of brain data.

The key applications of generating such high-resolution brain images are advancements to current fetal imaging technologies, for early diagnosis and treatment for developmental disorders.

SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUE

These findings of this Research has been accepted for publication as a Special issue by Journal of Comparative Neurology, a century-old peer-reviewed systems neuroscience journal.

Elaborating on the importance of this research, Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Comparative Neurology, said, “DHARANI is now the largest publicly accessible digital dataset of the human fetal brain, created with less than one-tenth of the initial funds that powered the Allen Brain Atlas, and with a technology platform that was entirely custom-made in India between 2020 and 2022, during the COVID pandemic. IIT Madras, thus, joins the Allen Brain Institute, and India joins the US, at the table of human brain cartography where large sums are invested to provide mankind with freely-available atlases of the available knowledge about the structures that compose the human brain.”

The Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre was launched in 2022 to power a large-scale multi-disciplinary effort in the fields of science, technology, computing and medicine and to map human brains at cellular level.

Congratulating the researchers on this cutting-edge work, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, said, “I am delighted that India is at the forefront in generating human fetal brain maps for the first time through this cutting-edge technology developed by IITM’s Brain Centre. We are pleased that the support from our office has seeded this pioneering effort advancing scientific knowledge in this frontier area of brain sciences, and has generated a global resource for researchers worldwide.”

Further, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus and Co-Founder, Infosys, added, “This accomplishment reconfirms that Indian R&D can create world-class science and technology. It also demonstrates the success of a unique public-private-philanthropy-partnership (PPPP) model. We must dream big to create global impact. Ambitious research programs are multi-disciplinary and multi-year, and I hope this program inspires more such programs in India and will get private and public support.”

‘KEY GLOBAL RESEARCH RESOURCE’

The Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre has created this comprehensive cell resolution atlas of the human fetal brain in the second trimester. This detailed atlas, where the researchers have identified and marked over 500 brain regions, will serve as an important global reference for advancing human neuroscience research for decades to come.

Further elaborating on the importance of this research, Prof. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, IIT Madras, said, “This Study will pave way for new scientific discoveries, allowing quantification of neurodevelopmental disorders and advances in fetal medicine. This is now the largest publicly accessible digital dataset of the human fetal brain, advancing current knowledge by 20X. This is the first time such advanced human neuroscience data has been produced from India and made freely available as a global resource.”

SUDHA GOPALAKRISHNAN BRAIN CENTRE

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), the top ranked premier technology institution in India, launched its cutting-edge Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain with a vision to become a globally leading R&D centre for human brain research with transformative impact in neuroscience and neurotechnologies.

The Centre has developed a world-class high-throughput histology pipeline that processes whole human brains into high-resolution digital images at petabyte-scale. These unique first-in-class data sets of human brains of different types and ages provide an unprecedented high-resolution view of human brains that reveal cellular level details across the entire brain.

In just two years, the Centre has acquired over 200 brains of different types, ages (fetal, neonate, young adult, adult, old age) and diseases (stroke, dementia) from various medical institutions in the country, and processing them into cellular resolution digital volumes through the Centre’s high-throughput imaging platform.

The Centre is in a unique position to attain global leadership by generating the largest repository of human brain data in the world of various types that will serve as a global reference for decades to come.