Neuroanatomy

Imaging phantom

Anatomy

Radiology

Geology

Biomedical engineering

Magnetic resonance imaging

Biotechnology

Artificial intelligence

Neuroscience

Medical physics

In vivo

Ex vivo

Human brain

Scanner

Flip angle

Nuclear medicine

Functional connectivity

High resolution

Computer science

Remote sensing

Medicine

Biology

Human Connectome Project

Scientific Data

We present an ultra-high resolution MRI dataset of an ex vivo human brain specimen. The brain specimen was donated by a 58-year-old woman who had no history of neurological disease and died of non-neurological causes. After fixation in 10% formalin, the specimen was imaged on a 7 Tesla MRI scanner at 100 µm isotropic resolution using a custom-built 31-channel receive array coil. Single-echo multi-flip Fast Low-Angle SHot (FLASH) data were acquired over 100 hours of scan time (25 hours per flip angle), allowing derivation of synthesized FLASH volumes. This dataset provides an unprecedented view of the three-dimensional neuroanatomy of the human brain. To optimize the utility of this resource, we warped the dataset into standard stereotactic space. We now distribute the dataset in both native space and stereotactic space to the academic community via multiple platforms. We envision that this dataset will have a broad range of investigational, educational, and clinical applications that will advance understanding of human brain anatomy in health and disease.

7 Tesla MRI of the ex vivo human brain at 100 micron resolution