Anatomy: Resources

This simple web-based tutorial is designed for entry level students studying neuroscience in undergraduate arts and medical courses. The target audience includes students who have no background in neuroscience and who are struggling with basic concepts. Basic events in neuronal function, e.g. establishment of the resting membrane potential, action potentials, neurotransmitter release, post-synaptic mechanisms and axonal transport, are explained using minimal text and interactive, two-dimensional animations. The interface is set up as a small booklet of eight chapters, each addressing one aspect of neuronal function. From the University of Toronto.

The Visible Human Project is an outgrowth of the NLM's 1986 Long-Range Plan. It is the creation of complete, anatomically detailed, three-dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies. Acquisition of transverse CT, MR and cryosection images of representative male and female cadavers has been completed. The male was sectioned at one millimeter intervals, the female at one-third of a millimeter intervals. The long-term goal of the Visible Human Project is to produce a system of knowledge structures that will transparently link visual knowledge forms to symbolic knowledge formats such as the names of body parts.

The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, an R&D division of the NLM, through its Communications Engineering Branch, has created a database for this image dataset as well as for 3D rendered images of anatomic objects created from cryosectional images (cross-sections or slices).

The eSkeletons Project website is devoted to the study of human and primate comparative anatomy. It offers a unique set of digitized versions of skeletons in 2-D and 3-D in full color, animations, and much supplemental information. The user can navigate through the various regions of the skeleton and view all orientations of each element along with muscle and joint information. eSkeletons enables you to view the bones of both human and non-human primates ranging from the gorilla to the tiny mouse lemur. All of the large apes are represented as well as other species from different parts of the world. Many of these primates are rare or endangered species. Created at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Stanford Visible Female dataset, restricted to the female pelvis, is similar to the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project. Both datasets are a series of digitized color photographs of human cryosections. However, the SVF project is unique in two important ways: the specimen is that of a 32 year old female and it was fixed in a standing position. These features are unlike the 59 year old post-menopausal Visible Human Female. The uterus and ovaries are those of a reproductive age female and do not reflect the atrophic signs of post-menopause. However, the data set is limited to the pelvic region, the sections are thicker, and CT or MRI images of the specimen are unavailable.