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= Welcome to The Brain Databases Wiki! =

 The purpose of this wiki site is to develop an international strategy to preserve and promote neuroanatomical databases worldwide. Recently, several researchers met to discuss the importance of a worldwide network of neuroanatomical databases. The following is a brief summary of this meeting. Note that on the left, you will also see a list of other pages related to this wiki including Current Problems and a list of neuroanatomical collections.

This conference took place June 25th-28th 2010, at the [|National Museum of Health and Medicine], Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington DC. This first Conference was held to honor the late Wally Welker and was organized by his long term colleague and friend, Jack Johnson. Amongst the many contributions made by Wally and Jack to the broader scientific community was their joint development of a large comparative mammalian brain collection. Their collection of slides was transferred to the National Museum of Health and Medicine to join the famous Yakovlev-Haleem, Blackburn-Neumann, Richard Lindenberg, Huber-Crosby, Crosby-Lauer, and Meyer-Phipps collections of brains of humans and many other vertebrate species. It was therefore fitting that the first meeting of this group was held at the museum.

 Speakers at the meeting presented data on a range of topics related to the research of Wally Welker, but a significant amount of discussion among the participants centered on how to best make the content of the brain collections mentioned above, and several others, available to scientists around the world. The model presented by Professor Edward Jones (UC Davis) was acclaimed by all as one that we would like to apply to the Yakovlev-Haleem, Welker and other collections (see Brain Maps). Briefly, this model relies upon modern slide scanners to provide high resolution, digital images of neuroanatomical specimens that are available freely over the internet.

 On the last day of the meeting, it became quite clear that if the broader scientific community is to benefit from these neuroanatomical databases, several things have to happen.

===3) Digitizing of these collections is necessary for the preservation of these collections and the successful transfer and sharing of information among databases, researchers and the public. ===

To accomplish these goals, an international committee of interested neuroscientists was struck. This committee will liase with researchers, governmental and private funding bodies and industry. At present, this committee is comprised of:

__//**[PLEASE CORRECT OR ENTER YOUR EMAIL]**//__

**John Allman,** California Institute of Technology - cebus@caltech.edu **Constantin Bouras,** University of Geneva, Switzerland - Constantin.Bouras@unige.ch **Brendan Brinkman**, Olympus **Shaun Collin**, University of Western Australia, Perth - shaun.collin@uwa.edu.au **Archie Fobbs**, National Museum of Health and Medicine. AFIP, Washington DC - Archibald.j.Fobbs@us.army.mil
 * Hongwei Dong,** University of California Los Angeles - hongweidon@gmail.com

**Jack Glaser**, Microbrightfield **Michel Hofman,** Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam - M.Hofman@nin.knaw.nl **Patrick Hof**, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine - patrick.hof@mssm.edu **Andrew Iwaniuk**, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada - aniwaniuk@gmail.com

**Gilles Laurent**, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany - laurentg@caltech.edu **Paul Manger,** Univ. of the Wiwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa - paul.manger@wits.ac.za **Partha Mitra**, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - parthaxmitra@gmail.com **John Morris**, Allen Institute for Brain Research, Seattle, WA. - johnm@alleninstitute.org **Adrianne Noe**, National Museum of Health and Medicine, AFIP, Washington DC - Adrianne.Noe@us.army.mil **Chet Sherwood**, George Washington University - sherwood@gwu.edu
 * Milos Judas,** Croatian Institute for Brain Research, University of Zagreb, Croatia - mjudas@hiim.hr
 * Ivica Kostovic**, Croatian Institute for Brain Research,University of Zagreb. Croatia - ikostov@hiim.hr

**Wolf Singer**, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany - singer@mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de **Jeroen Smaers**, University College London - j.smaers@ucl.ac.uk **Robert C. Switzer III,** Neuroscience Associates, Inc. - bswitzer@NSALabs.com **Martin Will**, Microsoft - hmwill@mac.com
 * Larry Swanson,** University of Southern California - lswanson@usc.edu
 * Karl Zilles**, C. & O.Vogt-Institute of Brain Research, University of Duesseldorf, Duesseldorf, Germany - k.zilles@fz-juelich.de

and 3 //Ad hoc// members:
 * Jack Johnson (John I. Johnson)**, Michigan State University, East Lansing E-mail: johnij@aol.com
 * Edward Jones**, University of California, Davis E-mail: ejones@ucdavis.edu
 * Harvey J. Karten**, University of California, San Diego Email: hjkarten@ucsd.edu

 At this point, we are compiling information on databases and assessing how best to accomplish our goals. On the other pages of this Wiki, you will find a more detailed list of some of the issues that we have to consider when developing this international network and a list of the collections that we are interested in including in this network. In the coming months, we will continue to update this Wiki as well as eventually solicit feedback from the scientific community regarding the development and funding of this network.

 If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please make use of the Discussion feature on this Wiki or feel free to contact Andrew Iwaniuk.