April 28, 2023
RIKEN
Keio University
Tokyo Metropolitan University
Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems (ExCELLS)
A joint research group, including Team Leader Hideyuki Okano (Professor, Department of Physiology, Keio University School of Medicine) of the Laboratory for Marmoset Neural Architecture at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Visiting Researcher Junichi Hata (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Human Health Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University), and Project Associate Professor Ken Nakae of the Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems (ExCELLS), National Institutes of Natural Sciences, has developed and released a digital brain database of the common marmoset, a small primate, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
The results of this study, which were achieved as part of the Brain/MINDS project launched in 2014, are expected to contribute to elucidating the complete macro-level neural circuits responsible for higher brain functions in primates, overcoming human psychiatric and neurological disorders, and advancing information processing technology.
The joint research group performed MRI measurements and analysis on the brains of 216 healthy common marmosets (88 males, 128 females, aged 0.8–10.3 years) and has released a digital brain MRI database useful for preclinical research in brain science. This database, which includes a wide range of information such as age, sex, and physique (body weight), is currently the world's largest publicly available database of common marmoset brains. It will help in understanding the effects of factors such as age, sex, and physique on the brain and, as an open science resource, is expected to contribute to the development of the global brain science community and accelerate research.
This research was published online in the scientific journal Scientific Data on April 27 (JST).
For the full press release, please see below.