Networked neuroscience: brain scans and visual knowing at the intersection of atlases and databases

This chapter discusses the development of authoritative collections of brain scans known as “brain atlases”, focusing in particular on how such scans are constituted as authoritative visual objects. Three dimensions are identified: first, brain scans are parts of suites of networked technologies rather than stand-alone outputs; second, they are specified by means of a “database logic” that makes particular neurological features visible within a register of possibilities; and third, they serve as interfaces that open up a range of possibilities rather than stand in as fixed representations. By tracing how the very concept of the authoritative image has been transformed, the chapter shows how visual knowing takes shape in research practices and situates it in the digital and networked settings of contemporary science.