IIT-M’s centre to understand human brain inaugurated

The prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) on Saturday threw open an advanced brain research centre to understand the human brain much deeper by slicing it into thousands of high-resolution digital images and mapping it at the cellular level.

Billed as the first-of-its-kind, the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, funded by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, the Union Government, and IIT-M, located inside the sprawling campus was inaugurated by Prof K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.

The Centre’s first project titled ‘Computational and Experimental Platform for High-Resolution Terapixel Imaging of ex-vivo Human Brains’ has brought together 10 professors from the IIT-M, 40 researchers, six professors from the leading institutes, 25 global researchers, and scores of doctors.

Though the Centre was formally thrown open today, it is already studying three human brains and another 10 are waiting for research. The technology will help study several diseases and doctors and researchers have taken Rabies as the prototype. Alzheimer’s disease and Encephalitis are among other diseases that will be studied.

“We don’t understand brain like we understand the heart. We need a map of the brain not just to understand it better but also to come out with advanced treatment protocols. Our job here is to map the human brain and get details which will run into 100s of Tera Byte (TB),” Prof Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head of the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, told DH.

The first step, Prof Sivaprakasam said, is to slice the brain into thousands of high-resolution images. “It takes about a month to get the high-resolution images and we have got the images for the first three brains we are currently studying. The next step is to map it which will take some time. The results of the study on the images will be released soon,” he said.

Though magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to image the human brain, Prof Sivaprakasam said, the technology reconstructs the brain only at a millimetre level but the new centre aims to get them reconstructed at micrometre level. “This will help us get the map of the brain. And we take different types of brain to study,” he added.

Dr George M Varghese, Professor and Head, Department of Infectious Diseases, Christian Medical College, Vellore, told DH that the Centre will give an advantage of studying normal and abnormal human brain.

“First of all, this is an unusual combination of technological development and healthcare or medical advances. We combining it together to develop such a project. You can study the developmental abnormalities in babies who are still born babies. We have started with that,” Dr Varghese, who is involved in the project, said.

He added that the Centre can various diseases looking at thin slices of brain, stain it and reconstruct the whole brain to see the abnormalities in different parts of the brain.

“All that will give you much deeper understanding of many diseases for which we don’t have enough understanding to cure. And then you can make treatment modalities or new treatment strategies based on the findings. New treatment strategies,” Dr Varghese said.

In his speech, Kris Gopalakrishnan, also an alumnus of IIT-M, said entrepreneurship and development in science and technology are important for the nation’s growth.

“While there have been great strides in supporting entrepreneurship, there is a need for more support to foster world-class research in India. Scientists and engineers play an important role in feeding the knowledge economy of the country. The country has the right talent, resource and opportunity in leading some areas globally,” he added.

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