The rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) is a crucial experimental animal that shares many genetic, brain organizational, and behavioral characteristics with humans. A macaque brain atlas that identifies anatomically and functionally distinct regions is fundamental to biomedical and evolutionary research. However, even though connectivity information is vital for understanding brain functions, a connectivity-based whole-brain atlas of the macaque has not previously been made. In this study, we created a new whole-brain map, the Macaque Brainnetome Atlas, based on the anatomical connectivity profile provided by high-resolution angular and spatial diffusion MRI data. The new atlas consists of 248 cortical and 56 subcortical regions as well as their structural and resting-state functional connections. We systematically evaluated the parcellations and connections using multi-site and multi-modal datasets to ensure reproducibility and reliability. The resulting resource, which is downloadable fromhttp://atlas.brainnetome.org, includes (1) the thoroughly delineated Macaque Brainnetome Atlas (MacBNA), (2) the multi-modal connections, (3) the largest postmortem high resolution macaque dMRI dataset, and (4) ex vivo MRI, block-face, and Nissl-stained images obtained from a different macaque. We provide an exemplar use of the resource with a joint multi-modal and multi-scale utilization of MRI and Nissl data with our atlas as a reference system. The goals of the resource are not only to provide a backbone of the mesoscopic connectivity and a multi-omics (such as transcriptomes and proteomes) atlas but also to facilitate translational medicine, cross-species comparisons, and computational modelling, enriching the collaborative resource platform of nonhuman primate data.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.