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Demos and tools / Fetal brain atlas

Fetal brain atlas

A normative atlas of fetal brain maturation from 3D ultrasound, built from the INTERGROWTH-21st study, with labelled brain structures and growth curves. Explore it below. The files are available from the INTERGROWTH-21st website.

Explore the atlas Growth curves Download and cite
Axial slices of the atlas at every second week from 14 to 30 weeks' gestation, drawn at the same scale, with brain structures in colour from 18 to 26 weeks
The atlas has one image per week from 14 to 30 weeks. Shown here is every second week, all at the same scale, with labelled brain structures from 18 to 26 weeks.
Click on the brain to name a structure
22 weeks
View

Legend

    Drag to move through the brain · scroll to change slice · right-drag to adjust contrast · in 3D, drag to rotate

    Download this week's image Download this week's labels

    Growth curves

    Normative growth of 28 brain measures from 18 to 27 weeks' gestation (structure and lobe volumes, cortical surface area, depth and thickness, and Sylvian fissure depth), from 4,205 3D ultrasound scans in the INTERGROWTH-21st study (Wyburd et al., 2026). The band shows the 3rd to 97th centile and the line the median.

    Download the table (CSV)
    3rd to 97th centile 50th centile Your measurement
    Before comparing your own measurements. These growth models were learned from a coordinated multi-site study (INTERGROWTH-21st), in which every scan was acquired with the same protocol and the same ultrasound machine (Philips HD9). Scans from other machines, probes or acquisition protocols, or structures measured with other segmentation methods, may differ systematically from these curves, so interpret any comparison with caution.

    Measures are for one hemisphere (the side further from the probe), except total brain and cavum septum pellucidum. Curves are from the published equations (Supplementary Table 8). For academic research use only; not a clinical tool and not for commercial use.

    Download and cite

    Atlas

    Brain images by gestational week

    One 3D volume per week (14 to 30 weeks), in NIfTI format (.nii.gz).

    Download a week
    14 wk15 wk16 wk17 wk18 wk19 wk20 wk21 wk22 wk23 wk24 wk25 wk26 wk27 wk28 wk29 wk30 wk

    Cite: Namburete et al., Nature 2023

    Read the paper ↗ Official files and terms ↗
    Labels and growth curves

    Brain structures and centiles

    Label maps aligned to the atlas (10 structures and 5 cortical lobes), tables of label names and colours, and growth centiles by week.

    Brain structures
    18 wk19 wk20 wk21 wk22 wk23 wk24 wk25 wk26 wk
    Lobes
    18 wk19 wk20 wk21 wk22 wk23 wk24 wk25 wk26 wk
    Tables (CSV)
    Brain structures labelsLobes labelsGrowth centiles

    Cite: Wyburd et al., Nature Communications 2026

    Read the paper ↗
    Your own scans

    Label and measure new scans

    The OMNI ultrasound toolkit runs the same pipeline used in the paper: align a 3D scan to the atlas, label the brain structures, compute volumes and compare them with the growth curves.

    Documentation and code ↗

    The official copies of the atlas and labels, with the full terms of use, are on the INTERGROWTH-21st website.

    Download from INTERGROWTH-21st ↗
    Growth curve table (CSV)

    Free for academic use. Commercial use is not permitted. Please cite the papers below (licence: CC BY-NC 4.0).

    References

    1. Namburete AIL, Papież BW, Fernandes M, Wyburd MK, Hesse LS, Moser FA, et al. Normative spatiotemporal fetal brain maturation with satisfactory development at 2 years. Nature 623, 106–114 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06630-3
    2. Wyburd MK, Kennedy SH, Fernandes M, Dinsdale NK, Hesse LS, Gunier RB, et al. Normative growth trajectories of fetal brain regions validated by satisfactory maturation of neurodevelopmental domains at 2 years of age. Nature Communications 17, 3073 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69657-w