Scientists have created the first ever complete high-resolution map of how tens of millions of neural fibres in the brain’s outer layer connect and communicate. Their ground-breaking work identified a single network core, or hub, that may be the key to the working of both hemispheres of the brain.

The work by researchers from Indiana University, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and Harvard Medical School marks a major step in understanding the most complicated and mysterious organ in the human body.

The work also describes how the non-invasive technique can be used in mapping trillions of neural connections in the brain at even greater resolution, in a new discipline called "connectomics."

"This is one of the first steps for building large-scale computational models of the brain to help us understand processes that are difficult to observe, such as disease states and recovery processes to injuries," said Olaf Sporns, co-author of the study and neuroscientist at Indiana University.

Until now, scientists have mostly used functional fMRI technology to measure brain activity -- locating which parts of the brain become active during perception or cognition.

What is known of neural fibre connections and pathways has largely been learned from animal studies, and so far, no complete map of brain connections in the human brain exists.

In this study, a team of neuro-imaging researchers led by Patric Hagmann of the University of Lausanne used state-of-the-art diffusion MRI technology, a non-invasive scanning.

A highly sensitive variant of the method, called diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI), can depict the orientation of multiple fibres that cross a single location.

The study applies this technique to the entire human cortex, resulting in maps of millions of neural fibres running throughout this highly furrowed part of the brain.

The findings appeared in PLoS Biology Monday.

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