The type of brain map that used to grace high-school biology texts looked like a quilt: A pink chunk labeled “vision” bumped up against a blue blob that was the seat of language and a yellow swath representing motor perception. Those crude representations were the result of centuries’ worth of painstaking dissection, coupled with case studies of people suffering from brain damage and disease.

It took only three years for a Seattle lab founded by Microsoft mogul and philanthropist Paul Allen to revolutionize the landscape of neuroscience by creating a map of the brain that goes far beyond topography to pinpoint the workings of individual cells. The Allan Brain atlas is one of his biggest philanthropic endeavors. “The federal government would have been reluctant to fund a project on such a scale”, said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne says, “This really just bolts us ahead in our ability to understand brain function and brain disorder,” — and what goes wrong in conditions ranging from schizophrenia and autism to Parkinson’s disease and drug addiction. “I really can’t live without it. Mapping the genes myself would be far too time-consuming,” said Ben Barres, professor of neurobiology and developmental biology at Stanford University.

The free, online brain atlas program and tutorials on how to use it can be found and downloaded at the following link: Allan Brain Atlas

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