The Developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) has made available brain MR images from more than 500 newborn babies to help global researchers study how the brain develops.
The project, a collaboration among King's College London, Imperial College London, and the University of Oxford, released the MR images with a goal to learn more about how fetal and infant brains' wiring and function advances during pregnancy and after birth. A pilot release of scans from 40 infants has already been accessed hundreds of times.
Scan of a newborn baby's brain visualizes information diffusion-weighted MRI data acquired as part of the Developing Human Connectome Project and shows the direction of different nerve fibers. Image courtesy of the Developing Human Connectome Project.The images included in the data are from babies born and imaged between 24 and 45 weeks of pregnancy at the Evelina Newborn Imaging Centre at King's College London. Researchers believe this information will add to current knowledge on how conditions, such as autism, develop or how problems in pregnancy affect brain growth.
The dHCP is funded by a 15 million euro Synergy grant from the European Research Council.
