One wall of Neil Borden’s office at the University of Vermont Medical Center is lined with dozens of books showing images of the brain. Some show cerebral slices. Others contain unlabeled images, but none is a comprehensive, all-encompassing reference of a full variety of cranial views.
During his more than 30 years of practice, Borden, a UVM associate professor of radiology and former endovascular neurosurgeon, came to realize that no single book illustrated the brain in its entirety or provided the encyclopedic breadth of everything from the hippocampus to the vascular structure. So he decided to publish one himself.
Titled “Imaging Anatomy of the Human Brain: A Comprehensive Atlas Including Adjacent Structures,” Borden’s book was released by Demos Medical Publishing on August 25, 2015. He calls it “a very detailed anatomic atlas of the brain.”
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” says Borden, who started outlining the project with two colleagues (his coauthors) while still at the Medical College of Georgia. It wasn’t until he arrived at the UVM College of Medicine in early 2013 that he began the arduous process of pulling together all the images for the book.
With the help of Associate Professor of Radiology Richard Watts, Ph.D., director of the MRI Center for biomedical imaging, and Scott Hipko, a senior research technologist, he was able to assemble images taken by the UVM research magnet. Alastair Moore, M.D., a radiology residents, provided 3-D modeling for the book.
“Imaging Anatomy of the Human Brain” includes views of the brain from back to front, side to side and top to bottom. It covers all types of radiology – magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, computerized tomography (CT) scan, ultrasound and spectroscopy, which will identify a brain tumor.
“If there’s a brain tumor, you have to tell the surgeon where that brain tumor is located,” Borden says. “So you have to know that anatomy.”
The book provides detailed, labeled images and unlabled versions next to them, so students can test themselves. It contains close-ups of the cochlea and auditory canal, the pituitary gland, and the Liliequist membrane.
“The amount of material that you need to know to be a good radiologist is just beyond what you can keep in your brain,” Borden says.
Board-certified in diagnostic radiology and neuroradiology, Borden has published two other textbooks in the field of neuroradiology, including “3D Angiographic Atlas of Neurovascular Anatomy and Pathology” (Cambridge University Press, 2006), “Pattern Recognition Neuroradiology” (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
With this book, he applied his decades of experience to give students and future radiologists exactly what they’ll need to know in practice. Borden has completed another book, a sort of sequel, “Imaging Anatomy of the Human Spine,” which is scheduled for release in December.
“I want to contribute something to my field that will help other people,” he says. “Learning materials that are high quality, accurate, complete – that’s very important.”
