A tissue processing and data collection pipeline was established to image the brain and subsequently dissect tissue samples from approximately 900 anatomically defined sites for RNA isolation and microarray analysis (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Methods 1). Two complete normal male brains were analysed from donors aged 24 and 39 years and are referred to here as Brain 1 and Brain 2 (Supplementary Table 1). Briefly, cooled brains underwent in cranio magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) followed by embedding, slabbing and freezing. Whole-brain cryosections were made from each slab, after which the slabs were subdivided and sectioned on 2 × 3 inch slides for histological analysis with Nissl and other markers for structure identification. Defined brain regions were isolated either using macrodissection (cortical gyri, other large structures) or laser microdissection (LMD; Leica LMD6000, Leica Microsystems) from tissue sections on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) membrane slides (Leica Microsystems). Any given anatomical structure was first identified on the basis of histological data, and then sampled in a series of contiguous coronal slabs in both hemispheres. RNA was isolated from each sample and used to generate
