Iterative co-creation of harmonized human and non-human primate cellular and structural ontologies and 3D common coordinate frameworks for the basal ganglia
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: SUMMARY A major goal of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) is to create a suite of foundational reference cell atlases and associated standards for human and non-human primate brains. Central to this goal is the creation of cross-species harmonized cellular taxonomies and structural parcellations with formal ontologies that can be mapped into 3D reference frameworks bridging neuroimaging and cellular and histological resolutions. We describe here an iterative approach, focused initially on the basal ganglia, to co-create structural and cellular ontologies in human, macaque and marmoset brains, including a Harmonized Ontology of Mammalian Brain Anatomy (HOMBA), and to map and refine structural parcellations into neuroimaging-based common coordinate frameworks. These references provide the framework for documenting and mapping all experimental sampling in BICAN, allowing analyses of cellular and molecular variation as a function of topographic position, and enabling comparisons of cellular, molecular and neuroimaging-based functional variation within and between primate species. Highlights A hierarchical Harmonized Ontology of Mammalian Brain Anatomy (HOMBA) covering 2348 structures HOMBA-annotated 3D common coordinate frameworks (CCFs) of the basal ganglia across species Histologically informed 3D parcellation/atlas of 280 human subcortical structures indexed by HOMBA Mapping and integration of structural, cellular and functional data with HOMBA and CCFs
Authors: Song-Lin Ding, Ashwin A. Bhandiwad, Burke Ǫ. Rosen, Stephanie C. Seeman, Brian Long, Nelson J. Johansen, Ugur Bayindir, Benjamin Facer, Yuanyuan Fu, Yoel Halimi, Yujie Hou, Dingzi Hu, Mike Huang, Takuro Ikeda, Phil Lesnar, Xiao-Ping Liu, Zhaoke Luo, Patrick L. Ray, Joshua J. Royall, Matthew T. Schmitz, Akiko Uematsu, Julien Vezoli, Faraz Yazdani, Trygve E. Bakken, Winrich A. Freiwald, Rebecca Hodge, Brian E. Kalmbach, Henry Kennedy, Lauren Kruse, Tyler Mollenkopf, Lydia Ng, David Osumi-Sutherland, Carol L. Thompson, Takuya Hayashi, Michael J. Hawrylycz, Matthew F. Glasser, David C. Van Essen, Hongkui Zeng, Ed S. Lein
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7172401779