Collaborative Research: Accessing Brain Collection Information and Images Via the Internet, CD-ROM and Centralized Location

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Knowledge of brain structure is essential to understand brain function. The evolution of mammals has resulted in many differences in brain anatomy, but we know very little about how those differences correlate to the wide diversity of animal behavior. This collaborative project is to consolidate and make more accessible for research and education two major collections that form a unique, extensive, remarkably preserved assembly of mammalian brain specimens for comparative and evolutionary studies. Together they contain more than 275 sectioned and stained brains, including over a half million microscope slides, representing over 150 species, from 50 families in 17 different orders of Mammalia. Many specimens are irreplaceable, from rare or endangered species, and provide critically unique data for questions about biodiversity and evolution as well as neuroscience. The collections are being brought to a national museum facility in Washington DC to join complementary extensive human brain collections and establish a single site with long-term stability for storage, curation, and research on comparative mammalian brain neuroanatomy. An electronic website is being developed for worldwide access to images. Researchers can use the images directly, or decide whether to visit the museum itself to examine the original preserved biological material. The impact of this project is high. First, it safely preserves for future research an irreplaceable resource that represents a scientific investment of more than 50 years of exacting work by dozens of people. Second, it promotes multidisciplinary research on comparative neuroscience, behavior, evolution and systematics to understand the diversity in the most complex organ known. Third, using technology of digital imaging and multidimensional databases, it provides a working base as well as a model for how to handle and share complex morphological data with other collections, including those on non-mammalian vertebrate brains. Fourth, the project will continue to have educational impact by providing easy website access for schools and informal science education about the vertebrate brain in the context of biodiversity.