''NeuroNames'' is an integrated nomenclature for structures in the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...

and

spinal cord The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the sp ...

of the four species most studied by neuroscientists:

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

, macaque, rat and mouse. It offers a standard,

controlled vocabulary Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controllin ...

of common names for structures, which is suitable for unambiguous neuroanatomical indexing of information in digital databases. Terms in the standard vocabulary have been selected for ease of pronunciation, mnemonic value, and frequency of use in recent neuroscientific publications. Structures and their relations to each other are defined in terms of the standard vocabulary. Currently NeuroNames contains standard names, synonyms and definitions of some 2,500 neuroanatomical entities. The nomenclature is maintained by the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

and is the core component of a tool called "BrainInfo". BrainInfo helps one identify structures in the brain. One can either search by a structure name or locate the structure in a

brain atlas A brain atlas is composed of serial sections along different anatomical planes of the healthy or diseased developing or adult animal or human brain where each relevant brain structure is assigned a number of coordinates to define its outline or vol ...

and get information such as its location in the classical brain hierarchy, images of the structure, what cells it has, its connections and genes expressed there. Information can be accessed by any of some 16,000 synonyms in eight languages. NeuroNames is a source vocabulary of the Metathesaurus of the Unified Medical Language System. It is described in depth in the following three

scientific articles : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...

: * * *

External links

Overview of NeuroNames

BrainInfo

NeuroNames Direct Link
University of Washington Neuroanatomy Anatomical terminology Anatomy websites Biological databases {{Washington-stub

See also

External links