RHESUS MACAQUE PRENATAL AND POSTNATAL BRAIN HISTOLOGY DATASETS AVAILABLE FOR RESEARCH IN THE MACBRAIN RESOURCE CENTER (MBRC)

Here we describe embryonic and postnatal histology datasets of the rhesus macaque (Macacca mulatta) brain publicly available in Collection 6 of the MBRC in the Department of Neuroscience at Yale University School of Medicine: https://macbraingallery.yale.edu/collection6/. No animals were sacrificed for this study, instead, brains were obtained from unrelated studies. Examples of ongoing research using these materials are given. The datasets consist of approximately 35,000 digital images of more than 40 rhesus macaques of both sexes and spanning early embryonic stages through old age. All images are zoomable and downloadable at high resolution. The histo- and immunohistological datasets encompass close to 50 stains and markers, including commonly used neuronal and glial labels. These datasets have been organized as galleries of digitized brain coronal sections ordered rostral to caudal through complete cerebral hemispheres. The number of images per gallery ranges from ~20 to ~80 depending on the size of the brain (a function of age). See: Duque, et al, 2016; Duque et al., 2025; Mendoza-Silva et al., 2026a,b.
Our results demonstrate that through archiving and sharing resources it is truly possible to decrease the number of animals needed to be sacrificed for research, while decreasing costs and increasing scientific transparency and rigor. De novo research with these materials attests to a true and verifiable alternative to help nonhuman primate (NHP) brain researchers reduce, replace, or refine studies that require NHP brain histology.