From the ArcaMax Publishing, Science & Technology Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/technology/s-365806-747178
MELBOURNE (UPI) -- Australian scientists say they're developing the
technology to create individualized brain maps that will revolutionize
disease diagnosis and brain surgery.
The researchers from the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne said
neurosurgeons currently must rely on coarse maps of the brain's
structure that don't allow for differences between people's brains.
They said their new brain mapping technology -- expected to be
available within two or three years -- will use acquisition and
analysis processes and software to provide microscopic level magnetic
resonance imaging scanning of individual brains.
"Microscopic images inside the living brain will transform diagnosis
and treatment of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's
disease, Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease," said
University of Melbourne Associate Professor Gary Egan, the study's
leader. "This technology will allow us to look at cortical gray matter
and underlying white matter at a level previously only seen before in
post-mortem brains."
The scientists, with collaborators from the Neuroscience Research
Institute in South Korea, presented their research this week in
Melbourne during the annual meeting of the Organization for Human
Brain Mapping.