With the intent of catalyzing brain research in different areas, the Allen Institute provides free data and tools to scientists.

[3] The institute employs a business model that combines the operational agility and accountability of a for-profit enterprise with the founding vision to take on ambitious projects in neuroscience.

[4] The Allen Institute for Brain Science provides researchers and educators with a variety of unique online public resources for exploring the nervous system.

Jane Roskams, the neuroscientist who led the study, said that, "By using the Allen Spinal Cord Atlas, we were able to discover a brand new cell type that has previously been overlooked and that could be an important player in all manner of spinal cord injury and disease, including multiple sclerosis and ALS.

[13] The in situ hybridization data is accompanied by a set of reference atlases drawn by neuroanatomist Luis Puelles.

"The location of where these genes are active is at the very center of understanding how brain diseases work", neurologist Jeffrey L. Noebels told The Wall Street Journal in April 2011.

[20] The Allen Brain Observatory was launched in 2016 to capture cellular-level activity of neurons in the mouse visual cortex.

[22] In addition to the atlas resources, the Allen Institute has generated several other online research tools, including: