A precise atlas of the human subcortex

Abstract Clinical interventions and neuroimaging in the subcortex require anatomical definitions that exceed the resolution and anatomical detail of currently available deformable brain atlases. Here, we introduce a high-resolution human brain atlas comprising 95 manually segmented grey and white matter structures as well as 82 white matter tracts compiled from a multitude of resources including ex-vivo MRI, histology, fibre dissections, and neuroanatomy textbooks. The atlas is defined at an isotropic resolution of 100 μm and can be precisely deformed to individual subject brain anatomy. By providing precise definitions of both grey and white matter structures within and around the basal ganglia, thalamus, subthalamus, midbrain and cerebellum, the atlas provides a foundational resource for stereotactic surgery and subcortical brain imaging research, as well as for development of next-generation neuromodulation strategies. Competing Interest Statement M.U.F. has served as a consultant for CereGate GmbH and Tovly LLC, unrelated to the submitted work. A.H. reports lecture fees for Boston Scientific, is a consultant for and holds stock options of Modulight.bio, was a consultant for FxNeuromodulation in recent years and serves as a co-inventor on a patent granted to Charite University Medicine Berlin that covers multisymptom DBS fibrefiltering and an automated DBS parameter suggestion algorithm unrelated to this work (patent #LU103178). The remaining authors declare no competing interest.