Only the schematic maps of the human and non-human primate brains are widely used. Despite an English translation of the monography by Laurence Garey (1994), the theoretical concepts described therein are often not recognized and thus ‘rediscovered’ in modern publications. His theoretical concepts of the organizational principles and evolution of the cortex, however, as well as their potential functional implications are largely ignored, although they are at least equally important parts of his legacy. For detailed comparisons of the different versions see Judas et al. 2A), and some further subdivisions in the later modifications of this map (Brodmann, 1910, 1914). Nowadays, Brodmann’s maps dominate his legacy, showing 48 cortical areas of the human cerebral cortex ( Fig. ( B) Development of the citations of Brodmann’s work up to the year 2017. ( A) Title page of the famous monography (Brodmann, 1909) and the final version of the map of the entire human cerebral cortex (Brodmann, 1910). Influence of Brodmann's monography and map on modern day neuroimaging studies. Since two-thirds of the cortical surface are hidden in the sulci, and Brodmann, as well as the other authors, did not show the precise position of intrasulcal boundaries of the cortical areas in the maps, and only occasionally described their positions in the text or figures ( Zilles and Amunts, 2010), all such transformations from the 2D drawings to a 3D reference brain will remain questionable and are based more on subjective assumptions than real evidence from Brodmann’s work. Talairach and Tournoux, 1988), in which his 2D schematic drawing of the cytoarchitectonic subdivisions of the cerebral cortex has been tentatively registered as a 3D representation. The maps are also the fundament for freely available mapping tools (e.g. The maps have become particularly popular in recent times for localization of activations using functional MRI and for meta-analyses of structural and functional relationships. The number of publications with references to different versions of his maps (Brodmann, 1908 a, 1909, 1910, 1912, 1914) dramatically increased since the advent of neuroimaging using PET and MRI, and is still increasing ( Fig. His publications on the cytoarchitectonic parcellation of the entire human cerebral cortex made him a founder of the field of anatomical brain mapping. Vogt Archive, Institute of Brain Research, University Düsseldorf.Ī cited reference search in the Web of Science carried out in July 2018 resulted in over 170 000 citations of Brodmann’s work, mainly of his monography (Brodmann, 1909) (for a comprehensive list of all major publications by Brodmann and a short description of their content, see Supplementary Table 1). Korbinian Brodmann (17 November 1868–22 August 1918).