Abstract

Post-mortem MRI provides the opportunity to acquire high-resolution datasets to investigate neuroanatomy, and validate the origins of image contrast through microscopy comparisons. We introduce the Digital Brain Bank (open.win.ox.ac.uk/DigitalBrainBank), a data release platform providing open access to curated, multimodal post-mortem neuroimaging datasets. Datasets span three themes - Digital Neuroanatomist: datasets for detailed neuroanatomical investigations; Digital Brain Zoo: datasets for comparative neuroanatomy; Digital Pathologist: datasets for neuropathology investigations. The first Digital Brain Bank release includes twenty one distinctive whole-brain diffusion MRI datasets for structural connectivity investigations, alongside microscopy and complementary MRI modalities. This includes one of the highest-resolution whole-brain human diffusion MRI datasets ever acquired, whole-brain diffusion MRI in fourteen non-human primate species, and one of the largest post-mortem whole-brain cohort imaging studies in neurodegeneration. The Digital Brain Bank is the culmination of our lab's investment into post-mortem MRI methodology and MRI-microscopy analysis techniques. This manuscript provides a detailed overview of our work with post-mortem imaging to date, including the development of diffusion MRI methods to image large post-mortem samples, including whole, human brains. Taken together, the Digital Brain Bank provides cross-scale, cross-species datasets facilitating the incorporation of post-mortem data into neuroimaging studies.

Data availability

The Digital Brain Bank (https://open.win.ox.ac.uk/DigitalBrainBank) is a data release platform providing open access to curated, multimodal post-mortem neuroimaging datasets. All datasets described in this manuscript are available through the Digital Brain Bank, with details of access provided within the manuscript and on the website. Code for the Digital Brain Bank resource is available at https://git.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/thanayik/dbb. When available, details of associated processing code for each dataset is linked to the dataset's Information page on the Digital Brain Bank website. Source data for the corpus callosum analysis in Fig 3c is provided in a Supplementary File.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Benjamin C Tendler

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    benjamin.tendler@ndcn.ox.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2095-8665
  2. Taylor Hanayik

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Olaf Ansorge

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Sarah Bangerter-Christensen

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Gregory S Berns

    Psychology Department, Emory University, Atlanta, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Mads F Bertelsen

    Centre for Zoo and Wild Animal Health, Copenhagen Zoo, Frederiksberg, Denmark
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Katherine L Bryant

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1045-4543
  8. Sean Foxley

    Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Prof. Martijn van den Heuvel,

    Department of Complex Trait Genetics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  10. Amy FD Howard

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1154-1913
  11. Istvan N Huszar

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  12. Alexandre A Khrapitchev

    Medical Research Council Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7616-6635
  13. Anna Leonte

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  14. Paul R Manger

    School of Anatomical Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  15. Ricarda AL Menke

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  16. Jeroen Mollink

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  17. Duncan Mortimer

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7483-2024
  18. Menuka Pallebage-Gamarallage

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  19. Lea Roumazeilles

    Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  20. Jerome Sallet

    Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7878-0209
  21. Lianne H Scholtens

    Department of Complex Trait Genetics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  22. Connor Scott

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2316-1707
  23. Adele Smart

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4293-5942
  24. Martin R Turner

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  25. Chaoyue Wang

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9402-1563
  26. Saad Jbabdi

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    Saad Jbabdi, Reviewing editor, eLife.
  27. Rogier B Mars

    Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  28. Karla L Miller

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    Karla L Miller, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2511-3189

Funding

Wellcome Trust (202788/Z/16/Z)

  • Benjamin C Tendler

Cancer Research UK (C5255/A15935)

  • Alexandre A Khrapitchev

National Research Foundation of South Africa

  • Paul R Manger

Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (202788/Z/16/Z,MR/K01014X/1)

  • Ricarda AL Menke

Wellcome Trust (202788/Z/16/Z)

  • Jeroen Mollink

Wellcome Trust

  • Duncan Mortimer

Medical Research Council (MR/K02213X/1)

  • Menuka Pallebage-Gamarallage

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/M011224/1)

  • Lea Roumazeilles

IDEXLYON IMPULSION 2020, Labex CORTEX (IDEX/IMP/2020/14,ANR-11-LABX-0042)

  • Jerome Sallet

NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre

  • Connor Scott

Wellcome Trust (202788/Z/16/Z)

  • Adele Smart

Wellcome Trust

  • Taylor Hanayik

Motor Neurone Disease Association

  • Martin R Turner

China Scholarship Council

  • Chaoyue Wang

Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (221933/Z/20/Z,215573/Z/19/Z,MR/L009013/1)

  • Saad Jbabdi

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO (BB/N019814/1,452-13-015)

  • Rogier B Mars

Wellcome Trust (202788/Z/16/Z)

  • Karla L Miller

Medical Research Council, Alzheimer's UK and NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre

  • Olaf Ansorge

Alfred Benzon's Foundation

  • Mads F Bertelsen

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/N019814/1)

  • Katherine L Bryant

Medical Research Council (MR/K02213X/1)

  • Sean Foxley

Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO, European Research Council (VIDI-452-16-015,ALW-179,ERC-COG 101001062)

  • Prof. Martijn van den Heuvel,

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council , Medical Research Council (EP/L016052/1,MR/L009013/1)

  • Amy FD Howard

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council , Medical Research Council (EP/L016052/1,MR/L009013/1)

  • Istvan N Huszar

The Digital Brain Bank is supported by the Wellcome Trust (202788/Z/16/Z) and Medical Research Council (MRC, MR/K02213X/1). The Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust (203139/Z/16/Z).The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: There are four new species datasets (Hamadryas baboon, Golden Lion tamarin, Cotton-Top tamarin, and European wolf) provided in the first release to the Digital Brain Bank which have not been previously described in literature. These datasets all used post-mortem tissue from animals which died of causes unrelated to research, and therefore do not require a Home Office license under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Ethics statements associated with all remaining Digital Brain Bank datasets are described in the original manuscript associated with each dataset, as provided in Table 1.

Human subjects: All human post-mortem datasets described in the first release to the Digital Brain Bank used tissue provided by the Oxford Brain Bank, a research ethics committee (REC) approved, HTA regulated research tissue bank. The studies were conducted under the Oxford Brain Bank's generic Research Ethics Committee approval (15/SC/0639).

Copyright

© 2022, Tendler et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 3,370
    views
  • 320
    downloads
  • 35
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Benjamin C Tendler
  2. Taylor Hanayik
  3. Olaf Ansorge
  4. Sarah Bangerter-Christensen
  5. Gregory S Berns
  6. Mads F Bertelsen
  7. Katherine L Bryant
  8. Sean Foxley
  9. Prof. Martijn van den Heuvel,
  10. Amy FD Howard
  11. Istvan N Huszar
  12. Alexandre A Khrapitchev
  13. Anna Leonte
  14. Paul R Manger
  15. Ricarda AL Menke
  16. Jeroen Mollink
  17. Duncan Mortimer
  18. Menuka Pallebage-Gamarallage
  19. Lea Roumazeilles
  20. Jerome Sallet
  21. Lianne H Scholtens
  22. Connor Scott
  23. Adele Smart
  24. Martin R Turner
  25. Chaoyue Wang
  26. Saad Jbabdi
  27. Rogier B Mars
  28. Karla L Miller
(2022)
The Digital Brain Bank, an open access platform for post-mortem datasets
eLife 11:e73153.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73153

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73153

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience
    Haowen Liu, Lei Li ... Zhitao Hu
    Research Article

    Munc13 plays a crucial role in short-term synaptic plasticity by regulating synaptic vesicle (SV) exocytosis and neurotransmitter release at the presynaptic terminals. However, the intricate mechanisms governing these processes have remained elusive due to the presence of multiple functional domains within Munc13, each playing distinct roles in neurotransmitter release. Here, we report a coordinated mechanism in the Caenorhabditis elegans Munc13 homolog UNC-13 that controls the functional switch of UNC-13 during synaptic transmission. Mutations disrupting the interactions of C1 and C2B with diacylglycerol (DAG) and phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) on the plasma membrane induced the gain-of-function state of UNC-13L, the long UNC-13 isoform, resulting in enhanced SV release. Concurrent mutations in both domains counteracted this enhancement, highlighting the functional interdependence of C1 and C2B. Intriguingly, the individual C1 and C2B domains exhibited significantly stronger facilitation of SV release compared to the presence of both domains, supporting a mutual inhibition of C1 and C2B under basal conditions. Moreover, the N-terminal C2A and X domains exhibited opposite regulation on the functional switch of UNC-13L. Furthermore, we identified the polybasic motif in the C2B domain that facilitates SV release. Finally, we found that disruption of C1 and C2B membrane interaction in UNC-13S, the short isoform, leads to functional switch between gain-of-function and loss-of-function. Collectively, our findings provide a novel mechanism for SV exocytosis wherein UNC-13 undergoes functional switches through the coordination of its major domains, thereby regulating synaptic transmission and short-term synaptic plasticity.

    1. Neuroscience
    Muad Y Abd El Hay, Gretel B Kamm ... Jan Siemens
    Research Article

    The perception of innocuous temperatures is crucial for thermoregulation. The TRP ion channels TRPV1 and TRPM2 have been implicated in warmth detection, yet their precise roles remain unclear. A key challenge is the low prevalence of warmth-sensitive sensory neurons, comprising fewer than 10% of rodent dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. Using calcium imaging of >20,000 cultured mouse DRG neurons, we uncovered distinct contributions of TRPV1 and TRPM2 to warmth sensitivity. TRPV1’s absence – and to a lesser extent absence of TRPM2 – reduces the number of neurons responding to warmth. Additionally, TRPV1 mediates the rapid, dynamic response to a warmth challenge. Behavioural tracking in a whole-body thermal preference assay revealed that these cellular differences shape nuanced thermal behaviours. Drift diffusion modelling of decision-making in mice exposed to varying temperatures showed that TRPV1 deletion impairs evidence accumulation, reducing the precision of thermal choice, while TRPM2 deletion increases overall preference for warmer environments that wildtype mice avoid. It remains unclear whether TRPM2 in DRG sensory neurons or elsewhere mediates thermal preference. Our findings suggest that different aspects of thermal information, such as stimulation speed and temperature magnitude, are encoded by distinct TRP channel mechanisms.