(Photo/Nature)

In September, China will launch a brain imaging center with high-resolution, high-throughput imaging technology that could transform the field of neuroscience.

The facility will be located in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, at the Brain Information Technology Institute under Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). The institute boasts a budget of 450-million-yuan for five years. It is led by Luo Qingming, a researcher on biomedical imaging from HUST, and it will have another 120 researchers and experts in the future to work on human brain imaging, Nature reported.

Unlike traditional imaging institutes with one or two brain imaging machines, the institute in Suzhou has 50 automatic machines. The imaging process, which usually requires manual labor and months or even years of studies, can be conducted by the machines within weeks and provide 3D results in the end.

The high-tech center has the potential transform the field of neuroscience.

The institute aims to become an international center for the mapping of neural connections, which could be used in studies related to Alzheimer’s disease and AI projects.

It will take a single machine 20 years to complete a digital reconstruction of a human brain, according to Luo, adding that the institute will gradually speed up the processing speed of the machines and more machines may be added in the future.