Havana - Cuba, China and Canada tighten relations for the study of the center of the nervous system, official sources informed today here.

The three countries agreed to promote research related to the early detection and management of pathological aging of the brain, declared the coordinator of the Cuban Brain Mapping, Doctor Pedro Valdés, to Granma daily.

The agreement also establishes an academic exchange program that facilitates the achievement of that goal, said Dr. Valdés.

The three nations agreed to these actions as part of a project agreed during the First Meeting of Human and Neuroinformatics Brain Mapping, recently held at the Center for Neuroscience in Cuba, located in this capital.

To fulfill this, each nation undertook to provide certain funding to support the execution of joint investigations planned over the next three years.

The Quebec Science Fund, the China National Science Foundation and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment of Cuba, through the Fund for Science and Technological Innovation, will fund the project.

In the context of the meeting, a website was launched in Spanish, English, French and Chinese for reporting on the progress of the studies.

In addition, the Chinese laboratory scientists in Chengdu, linked to brain exams in their nation, through video conferences were able to exchange views with participants in the meeting.

Brain mapping is a set of neuroscience techniques devoted to the mapping of (biological) quantities or properties in spatial representations of the brain (human or nonhuman) resulting in maps.

The projects on the subject emerged worldwide in the 90's of the last century and aim to investigate in detail the structure and functions of the human brain through advanced neuroimaging equipment.