Who knew that Ontario has one of the largest concentrations of brain scientists in the world?

Believing that improving brain health takes “massive collaboration”, the Ontario Brain Institute today launched the province’s first Neuroscience Asset Map. The map will connect over 800 researchers with hospitals, neurological charities, ‘brain companies’, patients and the public.

The Asset Map is an online tool with a growing database that lists virtually every brain-related resource in the province. Users can access the tool and find neuroscience expertise and talent ranging from researchers studying Alzheimer’s disease to companies developing neurotechnologies to patient advocacy groups supporting those suffering from a major brain disorder.

The Asset Map will also help streamline the development of discoveries into new patient treatments, produce more focused and integrated research and help businesses identify partners and markets more effectively.

“A growing factor in all medical discovery is breaking down silos and building up connections,” said the Ontario Brain Institute’s Dr. Donald T. Stuss. “This is especially true in the study and care for our most complex organ, the brain.”

The Asset Map has a number of user-friendly, interactive interfaces. Depending on the nature of the question being asked, each interface provides a different ‘lens’ to view the same set of data contained in the map. Using these interfaces, users can identify and contact people, companies or institutions that deal with any number of neuroscience-related questions.

If users want to know which researchers have experience in imaging, or which companies produce medical devices, the Asset Map will provide that information. The map is free and anyone can use it and offer feedback. Anyone can request the addition of new researchers or organizations to the database.

The Ontario Brain Institute is a provincially‐funded, not‐for‐profit research centre. It works to maximize the impact of neuroscience and establish Ontario as a world leader in brain discovery, commercialization and care.

In what can only be described as an oddly-sounding, grainy narrator voice, the Ontario Brain Institute has provided us with this video explaining the new tool.