Scientists Fingerprint the Brain

The brain’s structural connections are unique to an individual, a new imaging technique reveals.

Every brain is unique, and scientists now have the means to pin down precisely how unique. Disease, environment, and genetic factors all influence the pattern of connections between neurons, called the local connectome. A new imaging technique quantifies differences between the local connectomes of individual brains, allowing researchers to identify a brain by its connectome “fingerprint.”

The technique uses diffusion MRI to track the movement of water molecules along pathways in the brain’s white matter, creating a fine-scale image of structural connections. The team took repeat MRI scans of a few individuals, and found that they could tell whether two local connectome fingerprints came from the same individual with 100 percent accuracy over the 17,398 identification tests they ran. The team’s findings were reported this week (November 15) PLOS Computational Biology.

Read more: Scientists Fingerprint the Brain

WIKIPEDIA, THOMAS SCHULTZ

Source: TheScientist

Insights on the Growing Fingerprint Challenge

Although some fingerprint analysis is new, the concept—using fingerprints for identification—started centuries ago.

The Future of Identifying People Will Require More Than One Method

Standing in the immigration line at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India, I watch person after person be fingerprinted. First, you put your left four fingers on a digital pad, then your right four, and finally both thumbs at once. If all goes smoothly, the Indian government collects all ten fingerprints for everyone entering the country. It’s not as easy as it sounds, even from the start. More than one person is asked to try again and again. So obtaining a print can be as difficult as analyzing one.

Although some fingerprint analysis is new, the concept— using fingerprints for identification—started centuries ago. Thousands of years ago in Babylon, a fingerprint served as a signature of sorts on business papers. Finally, in 1880, British surgeon Henry Faulds described using fingerprints to identify people; he gets credit for the first use of this technology of lifting a print from an alcohol bottle.

Read more: Insights on the Growing Fingerprint Challenge

Source: labmanager