How Indian scientists are mapping the brain's last frontier
Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, have created a highly detailed 3D digital atlas of the human brainstem. The project, named Anchor, maps over 200 cell clusters and nerve pathways to help researchers better understand this vital, complex region.
Why it matters
Mapping the brainstem at a cellular level provides a foundational tool for diagnosing and treating neurological disorders that were previously difficult to study.
Image source, Universal Images Group via Getty Images Image caption, A map of the human brain - an organ containing some 86 billion neurons
India correspondent Published 13 July 2026, 01:08 BST For more than a century, neuroscientists have studied the human brain much as early cartographers mapped unknown lands: piecing together a vast landscape from scattered observations.
Even today, pathologists diagnosing disorders such as Alzheimer's disease typically inspect a handful of tissue samples from an organ containing some 86 billion neurons. Much of the landscape remains unseen.
That is why scientists at the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre (SGBC) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) believe they have taken an important step towards filling one of neuroscience's biggest gaps.
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