Banstola Ashik, Reynolds John N J
Department of Anatomy, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Brain Health Research Centre, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Front Vet Sci. 2022 Jul 29;9:961413. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.961413. eCollection 2022.
A brain atlas is essential for understanding the anatomical relationship between neuroanatomical structures. Standard stereotaxic coordinates and reference systems have been developed for humans, non-human primates and small laboratory animals to contribute to translational neuroscience research. Despite similar neuroanatomical and neurofunctional features between the sheep and human brain, little is known of the sheep brain stereotaxy, and a detailed sheep atlas is scarce. Here, we briefly discuss the value of using sheep in neurological research and the paucity of literature concerning the coordinates system during neurosurgical approaches. Recent advancements such as computerized tomography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging are used for targeting and localizing the coordinates and brain areas in humans. Still, their application in sheep is rare due to the lack of a 3D stereotaxic sheep atlas by which to map sheep brain structures to its human counterparts. More recently, a T1- and T2-weighted high-resolution MRI 3D stereotaxic atlas of the sheep brain has been generated, however, the journey to create a sheep brain atlas by which to map directly to the human brain is still uncharted. Therefore, developing a detailed sheep brain atlas is valuable for the future to facilitate the use of sheep as a large animal experimental non-primate model for translational neurological research.
脑图谱对于理解神经解剖结构之间的解剖学关系至关重要。已为人类、非人灵长类动物和小型实验动物开发了标准立体定向坐标和参考系统，以促进转化神经科学研究。尽管绵羊和人类大脑在神经解剖学和神经功能特征上相似，但对绵羊脑立体定位知之甚少，详细的绵羊图谱也很稀少。在此，我们简要讨论在神经学研究中使用绵羊的价值以及神经外科手术方法中有关坐标系统的文献匮乏情况。诸如计算机断层扫描、正电子发射断层扫描、磁共振成像、功能磁共振成像和扩散张量成像等最新进展被用于在人类中定位坐标和脑区。然而，由于缺乏用于将绵羊脑结构映射到人类对应结构的三维立体定向绵羊图谱，它们在绵羊中的应用很少。最近，已经生成了绵羊脑的T1加权和T2加权高分辨率MRI三维立体定向图谱，但是创建一个可直接映射到人类大脑的绵羊脑图谱的征程仍未开启。因此，开发详细的绵羊脑图谱对于未来将绵羊用作转化神经学研究的大型动物实验非灵长类模型具有重要价值。
