India's stroke atlas opens free to the whole world — 1,000 slices of the human brain, mapped cell by cell

When a stroke strikes, doctors see a shadow on a scan; what they cannot see is the damage unfolding cell by cell. The Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre at IIT Madras in Chennai has now released C-STROKE, described as the world's first human ischemic stroke atlas, free to every researcher on Earth. It pairs patients' clinical MRI scans with high-resolution microscopic 3D imaging of whole brains — more than 1,000 annotated tissue slices mapping neuron damage, inflammation, a leaking blood-brain barrier, oxygen starvation and fraying nerve fibres. Built with the Param Shakti supercomputer and funded philanthropically by distinguished alumnus V. Prem Watsa, the atlas is meant to help scientists everywhere understand cerebrovascular disease and design cell-level therapies.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation