ArticlePLoS biology2020
BigBrain 3D atlas of cortical layers: Cortical and laminar thickness gradients diverge in sensory and motor cortices.
Article in PLoS biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 131 papers.
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131 citing papers in PubMed, 228 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Assessing molecular, cellular and transcriptomic bases of laminar perfusion and cytoarchitecture coupling in the human cortex.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Siibra: a software tool suite for realizing a Multilevel Human Brain Atlas from complex data resources.Nature methods · 2026Article
- Multiscale structural connectome eigenmodes constrain human brain functional dynamics.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Opportunities and pitfalls of data contextualization in neuroimaging.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Gray Matter Morphological Networks are Associated with Neurobiological Features, Cognitive Status and Clinical Recovery in Traumatic Brain Injury.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Representations converge as brain maps diverge along the cortical hierarchy.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Detection of chronic cerebellar and cerebral very small cortical infarctions on T2 and FLAIR 1.5T MRI.Acta neurologica Belgica · 2026Observational
- Cellular Diversity Underpins Cortical Organization and Disease Vulnerability in the Human Brain.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Multi-dimensional diffusion MRI at ultra-high gradient strength for mapping axonal architecture and microstructure in the primate brain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Visualizing cortical laminar architecture in the living human brain using next-generation ultra-high-gradient diffusion MRI.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Topology Outweighs Stiffness: Self-Reinforced Cell Mechanotransduction via Multiaxial Curvature Engineering of Ultrasoft Hydrogels.ACS nano · 2026Article
- A coupling model of transcranial magnetic stimulation induced electric fields to neural state variables.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Testing circuit-level theories of consciousness in humans.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- The Extremely Brilliant Brain: An Isotropic Microscale Human Brain Dataset.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The biological role of local and global fMRI BOLD signal variability in multiscale human brain organization.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- Human cortical dynamics reflect graded contributions of local geometry and network topography.Nature communications · 2025Article
71 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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17 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
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Abstract
Histological atlases of the cerebral cortex, such as those made famous by Brodmann and von Economo, are invaluable for understanding human brain microstructure and its relationship with functional organization in the brain. However, these existing atlases are limited to small numbers of manually annotated samples from a single cerebral hemisphere, measured from 2D histological sections. We present the first whole-brain quantitative 3D laminar atlas of the human cerebral cortex. It was derived from a 3D histological atlas of the human brain at 20-micrometer isotropic resolution (BigBrain), using a convolutional neural network to segment, automatically, the cortical layers in both hemispheres. Our approach overcomes many of the historical challenges with measurement of histological thickness in 2D, and the resultant laminar atlas provides an unprecedented level of precision and detail. We utilized this BigBrain cortical atlas to test whether previously reported thickness gradients, as measured by MRI in sensory and motor processing cortices, were present in a histological atlas of cortical thickness and which cortical layers were contributing to these gradients. Cortical thickness increased across sensory processing hierarchies, primarily driven by layers III, V, and VI. In contrast, motor-frontal cortices showed the opposite pattern, with decreases in total and pyramidal layer thickness from motor to frontal association cortices. These findings illustrate how this laminar atlas will provide a link between single-neuron morphology, mesoscale cortical layering, macroscopic cortical thickness, and, ultimately, functional neuroanatomy.
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